Thamesville Maize tells visitors to get lost for Canada’s 150th
When Thamesville’s Dieleman family tells you to get lost, you shouldn’t get angry.
This Labour Day weekend, their family farm, in partnership with Case IH Agriculture and Precision Planting, opens their 13-acre cornfield “Thamesville Maize” once again this year with a tribute to Canada’s 150th.
“It’s a work of love but there’s a lot of rewards and fun,” said Ken Dieleman, a part-time farmer whose family has been running the maze for 18 years.
“All our kids have learned an awful lot from it and they all have input on it.”
If you’re not the maze-ing type, there is a large farm for guests to experience and wait out as you inevitably cave and get lost yourself in the maze. You can find the Thamesville Maize west of Thamesville at 12768 Longwoods Road on Highway 2.
This weekend, the maze will be open Saturday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Sunday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. and even Labour Day from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
In one of the first of its kind in North America, computer technology was used to help in designing and then planting the 2017 labyrinth. The tech, typically used by farmers, allows them to avoid planting a whole cornfield and pulling out the stalks to make paths.
The idea for a maze initially came after Dieleman’s wife, Ingrid, spent two years convincing him to help build one after they saw a corn maze in British Columbia. Now, his wife “basically runs the maze.”
The family has seen its fair share of designs over the years. But the two that stand out the most was when one designed with Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, which Hadfield visited himself.
And the second was the maze designed with CBC satirist Rick Mercer’s face on it.
“When somebody puts your face in a corn maze — you show up,” he remembered Mercer saying. “He reached out to them two weeks before they were about to plant the corn in May and did a segment on it in August.”
Next year, in honour of the 2018 International Plowing Match Rural Expo running next September in Pain Court, they’re planning on using the logo as their design.
If you can’t visit the maze this weekend, the corn maze will be open from Sept. 2 until Oct. 29 through reservations.
You can save a spot anytime on Fridays from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., or Saturdays 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.; or Sundays 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
If you want to book a time to get lost on holidays, you can reserve a spot from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
If you’re a teacher looking to book a field trip, there are hours during the weekdays that make the maze available by reservation.
To make a reservation, guests can call 519-692-5451 or visit them online at imaze.ca.