Amazing Maze
- This ancient entertainment is growing in Vermont"
By Jules Older
Photographs by Effin Older
Northern New England Journey Travel Magazine,
Volume 6, Number 5 Sept/Oct 2000 issue, pg. 26, 27
Which comes first, the path or the corn? If you were building a maze in a five-acre cornfield, would you start by planting corn, then pulling out the stalks where the paths go, or by laying down the paths and planting around them? That was the question facing Mike and Dayna Boudreau when they decided to build a corn maze in northern Vermont.
The Boudreaus, physical therapist assistants living in Londonderry, New Hampshire, built their maze in 1999. They did it with a lot of help from Dayna's family, the Pattersons, who run the dairy farm where the maze is raised. The Boudreaus named their creation "The Great Vermont Corn Maze", but neighbors quickly shortened it to "The Great Maze". And the neighbor's name stuck.
What inspires a couple to convert five acres of cornfield into, of all things, a maze? In this case, a confluence of factors. Mike explains: "We wanted to move closer to family, and Dayna's family has been farming in North Danville for three generations. That's factor one."
Dayna picks up the thread: "On our honeymoon six years ago, I read an article on English hedge mazes. I thought, Hmmm. We could do that. But what would we use for hedges?"
Mike chimes in: "Which brings us to factor three. I used to bring my five nephews from New Hampshire up to the farm, and theyjust loved playing around in the corn. We put the three things together and came up with the idea for a corn maze."
Besides taking weeks toestablish, instead of the years a hedge maze would require, a corn maze had advantages over the couple's other move-back-home schemes. They considered opening a bed-and-breakfast, but a tourist-attracting maze worked with neighboring B&B's rather than competing against them. They considered planting an apple orchard or berry farm, but a corn maze would produce quicker results than either of those. And Dayna adds with a smile, "If the maze hadn't worked out, the cows would have just eaten the corn. Since it did work, the cows eat it anyway--they just have to wait until November."
Once the plan wa settled upon, the Boudreaus started surfing the Web for the word "maze". They discovered that mazes, or labyrinths, have ancient origins. Among the most comlex was a 3,000-chamber funeral temple built for Amenemhet III in Egypt. The most famous (though it is perhaps mythical) was the Cretan Labyrinth; it was supposedly designed as a prinson for the half-bull, half-man Minotaur. Hedge mazes, like the one that first caught Dayna's attention, have long been a favorite of the English. The maze planted at Hampton Court inthe 17th century still stands. The maze planted in the Virginia Colony at Williamsburg has been re-created. The hedge maze at Longleat House in Wiltshire, England, was created in 1975 and includes 1.6 miles of paths.
No one measured the paths through North Danville's Great Maze, but it's complex and challenging. The average through-time for the 1999 maze was between 45 and 90 minutes (while the claimed record is 12 minutes, the official race record stands at 21 minutes). But not everyone is so fast; some have taken more than three hours to puzzle their way through the corn. On evenings, when the paths are open for the Moonlight Maze, members of the Patterson family stake themselves out at strategic points within the maze to ensure that nobody spends the night.
The Great Maze is actually five separate mazes, all interconnected. You start in Eeny Meeny Miny Mo Maze, which is designed to split up groups by tempting them with clusters of choices. Next comes Mazed Squared, a series of interconnected squares. Then you tackle the Center Maze, a series of circles. When you reach the center of the Center Maze, you get to ring the bell; then it's back to the business of finding your way out.
Once you've made your way through the circles, you pit yourself against the All Right Maze, which looks deceptively easy. It is, after all, just a few low rows of hay bales sitting in a small field. But the direction, "You can only go straight and take right turns," make it into a considerable challenge. Puzzled patrons wander back and forth, back and forth, trying to find a way out without cheating. When they finally do, it's onto Lookout Maze a complex tangle of crisscrossing paths. Folks emerge from that one looking triumphant...or just plain relieved.
Oddly enough, during the past few years, corn mazes have been springing up around the country. what distinguishes The Great Maze from the others? It's a subject that Dayna Boudreau quickly warms to. "Unlike most mazes, which leave you buried in corn for hours, ours offers an incredible panoramic view from the wildflower picnic area that is located halfway through it.
It also offers Emergency Exits that allow you to enjoy the maze without having to exercise longer than you want to. And it's the only corn maze in the world offering views of Mt. Washington and the White Mountains of New Hampshire as well as the rolling green hills of Vermont. This year, we've placed an extra reward at the end of the mazes--a Science Center with Exhibits about how agriculture and animals interact on the farm. It should be of interest to just about everybody."
Once you've enjoyed the mazes, what's to do? You can stay and play at the new Sugar Ridge Campground in Danville. Visit Dog Mountain, a gallery of dog art, in St. Johnsbury. You might like to attend an oil-lamp service at The Old North Church just down the road. You could go for a swim or take a boat out on Joe's Pond, you could hike through Groton State Park, or you could ride a bike over beautiful dirt roads in this uncrowded corner of Vermont.
So. Which comes first, the path or the corn? The Boudreaus have a clear answer. Mike says, "Definitely, the corn comes first. That way you can plant by machine. It's true, you have to clear each stalk by hand--a major part of the 2000 work hours we all put in when we created the maze--but it's still much faster in the long run."