Stronger Together – Corn Maze Edition

“Stronger Together” has been an understandable rallying cry from community-facing (and generally PC pandering) organisations these last seven months. And rightly so. Pandemics call for an unusual degree of “other”-mindedness when the risk of contagion, and the epistemic opacity, are so high. We wear masks in confined spaces not just to display solidarity in a theatrical way, although that’s a large part of it, but also as an act of good faith. “My mask protects you and your mask protects me,” and all that.

Appropriately, then, this year’s theme at the Edmonton Corn Maze was exactly this.i While masks weren’t required in the outdoor and extremely well-ventilated farm land, the now-token sanitizer stations were liberally distributed throughout and masks were still voluntarily donned by perhaps 25% of the corn maze goers, at least in the actual maze itself, if not the trampolines, tractors, hay bales jungle gyms, petting farm, and potato gun areas. On a stunningly warm early October evening, with the sun setting just after 7pm, it was a remarkably tranquil, almost idyllic way to spend an evening as a family.

We’ve been for a few years running now and it’s always worth coming home from work early for. Not only is it a rare opportunity to observe the less elite less insulated members of our community, but it’s a time to connect the boys with the land of their forefathers. My own father, after all, grew up on a farm not unlike this one about 90 minutes northeast of the city, and only moved to the big town to attend university. Furthermore, the agricultural bread basket that is the Canadian Prairies is too often disconnected from the fabric of “City Mouse” life, but it’s an integral part of the beauty and bounty that made our province what it is, and continues to shape it in often unseen ways.

So without further ado, here are a few photos from this year’s show:

Corn Maze Edmonton 2020 - 2Corn Maze Edmonton 2020 - 7Corn Maze Edmonton 2020 - 6Corn Maze Edmonton 2020 - 1Corn Maze Edmonton 2020 - 5Corn Maze Edmonton 2020 - 8Corn Maze Edmonton 2020 - 4Corn Maze Edmonton 2020 - 10

Until next time, remember, don’t tell secrets on the farm… the corn has ears.
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  1. Past themes have included the Edmonton Oilers, Edmonton Eskimos, and the like. In pre-pandemic times, the secular religion was nothing other than sports. Now, it’s “public health” however briefly. In the future (20+ years), don’t be surprised if adaptive new strains of Christianity make a roaring comeback. If Kanye’s recent transition to drill-gospel and Bieber’s transition to soft-pop-gospel are any indication, not to mention the waning relevance of full-franchise democracy in general, then there’s going to be an increasing demand for existential meaning the likes of which only organised religion is capable of delivering.

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