Aerial view of the corn maze at the Hunter Brothers Farm in Florenceville-Bristol, N.B. in September, 2024. This year's maze is a tribute to coach Gardiner MacDougall and the University of New Brunswick Varsity Reds hockey team.Stephen MacGillivray/The Globe and Mail
For a quarter of a century, the Hunter Brothers Farm in Florenceville-Bristol, N.B., has created elaborate corn mazes each and every fall. In the tall, stout grass near the bank of the Saint John River, the Hunter brothers and their team have depicted the Bluenose schooner, Terry Fox, Hogwarts Castle, Gordon Lightfoot, Maple Leafs stars Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner and the champion thoroughbred race horse Secretariat.
This year’s tribute celebrates coach Gardiner MacDougall and the University of New Brunswick Varsity Reds hockey team. In the past year, Mr. MacDougall led UNB’s men to a 43-0 record and its ninth Canadian national championship.
In May, he resigned as the most successful hockey coach in Canadian college history to take over the reins of the Canadian Hockey League’s Moncton Wildcats. With 732 victories in 985 games, he is the most successful college hockey coach in Canada’s history.
He didn’t know his face had been depicted in a canvas of corn until he was alerted by a friend.
“I am in the one-per-cent club, that’s for sure,” Mr. MacDougall says with a chuckle.
Chip Hunter, a hockey coach and referee who operates the farm with his brother Tom, believes this year’s corn maze makes a fitting tribute for the celebrated coach.
“It isn’t only about Gardiner, it’s about the team,” Chip Hunter says. “They were undefeated over 43 games. Who ever does that? That’s unbelievable.”
For a quarter of a century, the Hunter Brothers Farm, run by Chip Hunter and his brother Tom, has created elaborate corn mazes every fall.Stephen MacGillivray/The Globe and Mail
The brothers’ tradition began in 1996 with a rather amateurish rendition of a one-acre map of the province. The display has since been expanded to six acres, or as Chip Hunter says, to “about the size of a Walmart parking lot.”
“We are always looking for new ideas,” he adds.
The maze takes months to plan and starts with sketches drawn by a graphic designer. After that, a survey engineer plots GPS coordinates and the field is prepared and green corn is planted. As the corn grows, some of it is removed to create narrow paths. At the end, a drone is used to inspect the maze and fix mistakes.
This time, the paint applied is the same colour as the Varsity Reds’ jerseys. When a picture of the maze was posted online, it drew nearly 200,000 views.
“This is a chance for everybody to pay homage to the team,” Chip Hunter says. “I saw it as a way to help the story resurface again. In a way, it is a chance for them to be feted by the public. They weren’t just the best team. They were head and shoulders above everybody else.”
“They did an amazing job,” Mr. MacDougall says.
This year’s maze was planted on July 7 and opened to the public on Sept. 7. As long as the weather cooperates and sneaky raccoons and marauding bears can be kept at bay, it will remain open, primarily on weekends, through Oct. 27. Tickets can be purchased online for $13 per person. Weekdays are reserved for school trips, workshops and tours by private organizations.
Chip and Tom are the fourth generation to run the farm, where the family has planted more than 1,000 varieties of corn over the years.Stephen MacGillivray/The Globe and Mail
Thanksgiving is the busiest weekend of the year with as many as 1,000 visitors each on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
“Little kids have a great time,” Chip Hunter says. “I love to sit on my deck at lunch and hear people laughing in the maze and calling to each other, ‘Where are you?’
“It’s almost claustrophobic.”
Chip and Tom represent the fourth generation to run the family farm. The Hunters have planted more than 1,000 varieties of corn over the years, first as a wholesale operation and now as retailers. At the beginning, they hand-picked 60 acres of sweet corn but realized it wasn’t economically feasible.
“In the wholesale business you meet a lot of nice people,” Chip Hunter recalls. “When we decided to get out of wholesale, it felt like we were abandoning friends.”
The first maze was designed to entertain local school kids. Now it attracts folks from all over New Brunswick and Maine. It takes between three and four hours to navigate through the maze and enjoy other activities including zip lines, pumpkin cannons, and a corn house.
“I figure we have done our job if we bring families together,” Chip Hunter says.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this story included an incorrect first name for Tom Hunter. This version has been corrected.