End of a Halloween era: Gammondale Farm's final Pumpkinfest runs this weekend

If you've ever wanted to see a pumpkin fly, this weekend may be your last chance.

Gammondale Farms will host its final Pumpkinfest on Saturday and Sunday; the event has been running at the farm — located south of Thunder Bay in the Slate River Valley — every Halloween season for the last 30 years.

"Mixed emotions, without a doubt," said Gerry Gammond, who owns the farm with his wife, Sue.

"It's been a great activity and event at the farm over the years," he said. "To think of it in terms of all the good things that have happened over the years."

This year's Pumpkinfest again features all sorts of attractions, including a chance to try out Canada's biggest pumpkin catapult, a pumpkin train, pumpkin slingshot, and pumpkin bowling.

"Since COVID, Gerry has said that he'd like to do less work," Sue Gammond said. "So about this time of year, he'll say 'I don't want to do the Pumpkinfest again.' And I just nod my head."

"Then in January, I bring in some of the kids who have been working for us and start talking about what they would like to do in the fall, and they'll say they want to have a Pumpkinfest, and he's caved."

"But this spring we started talking about it again. And he made me sign a paper saying that I would not goad him into, or trick him into, running it again, which is very hard for me, because I love doing it."

"So does Gerry," she said. "But we each have one more birthday, and then we turn 80."

Sue Gammond said while Pumpkinfest may be wrapping up in the coming days, that doesn't hold true for other events at Gammondale Farm. Christmas sleigh rides, for example, are already being booked.

"That'll be the last thing ever, to go, because my life really consists of our family, and other kids, and horses," she said. "What our plan is, is to do reserved events, the way we've always done in the summer and the spring, and in the winter. But now, in the fall, we won't be selling pumpkins or developing anything where people can come with a ticket."

The Gammonds also took some time to thank everyone who's made the event possible over the decades.

"The very first people that made this happen are the kids who work for me," Sue Gammond said. "It's unique. There is nowhere else in North America where people do it this way."

"We belong to several organizations and that represent farms like ours, Ontario Farm Fresh Marketing and in Ontario and North American Direct Farm Marketers. We belong to those organizations since the 1970s, and we're the only ones and still the only ones who hire these young students to pull off the sales, and the Pumpkinfest."