A group of volunteers with the Heward Parks and Rec Board have begun work on setting up the Heward Haunted House, a fundraiser attraction to help raise funds to make improvements to the Heward rink.
Started some eight years ago, the haunted house initially was held in its first two years in the community hall; growing in size, it was moved to the rink on the curling rink side, and then to its current home on the skating rink side, as it has about 10,000 square feet of space.
This year the haunted house will be held over three days the weekend before Halloween, from Friday, Oct. 24 to Sunday, Oct. 26.
"Every year is a little bit different," said one of the organizers of the event, Danielle Gibson. She noted it has to be taken down every year after Halloween for the ice to go in, so when the volunteers go in to start setting up for the new haunted house, new features or displays can be introduced.
The house is set up with different rooms that one can go through, said Gibson. Last year, one of the popular parts of the house was the display of a buffalo, with a real stuffed buffalo on display, along with one room with a shaking floor that moves when one walks through it.
"We use fog and blacklights, and some people are dressed up to do a bit of scaring," said Gibson, noting last year these included zombies on a couch, a dead bride, and a werewolf in the pallet maze.
The Friday and Saturday sessions are adult-only, going from 7 to 11 p.m. each evening, and then on Sunday it's open to any age from 1-5 p.m., as Gibson explained, the lights are turned up slightly more and it's not as scary as it is for the adults.
"We have lots of little kids who go through there. They see a display and they just don't know; is it real?" said Gibson.
"Face it, it is so much fun. Considering the town itself only has like 25 people in it, this is amazing, and the best thing is that it changes and gets better every year," said Sarah Wright, one of the setup volunteers.
There are about seven volunteers involved in setting the display up, and around 20 are involved in the running of the house over the three days.
Last year, between 300 and 350 people made their way through the house, with some commenting it was as good or better than one they went to see in Regina.
Besides the Heward-Stoughton area, people come from a wide area, including from Weyburn, Windthorst, Corning and even people just travelling through the area, said Gibson.
Some of the projects the board wants to do in the rink include redoing the bathrooms and kitchen, and fixing the roof on the north side of the rink. One of the factors this year was the rains of this summer and fall caused some flooding in the rink, said Gibson, noting the setup began two weeks ago, and will take between 11 and 13 weeks to complete. "This year will be changed up from what people have seen in the past," said Gibson.
She said this year there will be a "never-before-seen beast" featured, plus Chantelle Duxbury has come up with new layout for this year's haunted house, including some use of animatronics, and an expansion of a corn maze that was in last year's house.
