For the past 17 years, the Hunter Brothers farm in Florenceville-Bristol, N.B. has built an intricately-designed corn maze based on a different theme.
Last year, they carved out an ornate rendering of Jose Bautista’s now famous bat flip, in 2015 they honoured the 35th anniversary of Terry Fox’s Marathon of Hope and in 2004, they celebrated the 400th anniversary of Acadie.
In 2009, the farm marked the centennial season of the Montreal Canadiens by sculpting the team’s logo into the corn maze. At the time, Chip Hunter, one of the owners of the farm, teased his brother-in-law, a diehard Leafs man, that he’d do something for Toronto in 2017, the last time the Leafs won the Stanley Cup.
Hunter kept his word. But instead of just basing it around the Leafs’ 50-year drought, Hunter decided to honour the team’s 100th anniversary, which is also this year. The corn maze features the Leafs logo, as well as portraits of Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner.
Making the maze is a weeks-long affair for the farm. Once they’ve decided on a theme, they hire a graphic designer to draw up the image and then hire a survey engineer to plot the GPS coordinates for the design. They then prepare the six-acre field by planting corn in a crisscross pattern to fill out the canopy. Next, surveyors lay out the design in the field using paint and the GPS coordinates, and then the farm crew then removes the corn to create the paths. Finally, a drone flies overhead so they can catch any mistakes.
The resulting maze is a stunning to tribute the to the Toronto Maple Leafs. Throughout the large paths, there are trivia questions that all relate back to the theme.
And although Hunter is a devoted Habs fan, he’s happy to do something for the local Leafs fans.
The corn maze is open until Sept. 9 to Oct. 29.
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