Before Halloween, Montreal embraces its dark corners, ghost stories, and windy streets. The nights are longer, and the city takes on a (neo)Gothic air, but it’s also a time of warmth and nostalgia when it’s easy to slip back into childhood.
On fall weekends, we’ll be able to spend some time in a ’90s “after-school special” in the vein of HALLOWEENTOWN and IT’S THE GREAT PUMPKIN, CHARLIE BROWN.
It’s somewhere between a fairy tale that transforms a pumpkin patch into a magical world for children and an influencer’s paradise for the perfect pumpkin-picking photo, draped in a hand-knitted sweater that costs way too much. It’s wonderful, and it opens on September 12, 2026, for the season.
PUMPKINVILLE
PUMPKINVILLE, technically, is a pumpkin patch—but seriously, it’s like a village built out of pumpkins.
You can wander through houses made of pumpkins, pray at the altar of the Great Pumpkin in the pumpkin church, and bring some home to decorate (it’s never too early) for the season.
It’s less than an hour’s drive from Montreal, in Saint-Zotique, and it’s well worth the trip for a sunny fall afternoon before Halloween.
The village was born 8 years ago, in a year when the Benoit Vernier Farm found itself with several imperfect pumpkins—too imperfect to be sold in supermarkets. They decided to sell them anyway, for $1 each. It was such a success that the farm has since become, every fall, CITROUILLEVILLE.
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HEAD IN THE PUMPKINS
The village is organized into several “photo booth” areas—the Saloon, the chessboard, little houses, scarecrows, and a church with a bell tower rising from a mountain of pumpkins.
There’s also a 1957 Dodge, an old-fashioned horse-drawn carriage, a tractor, a Westfalia camper, a corn-shaped shelter, and a corn maze to get lost in.
For the little ones, there’s also a giant inflatable pumpkin, face painting, and pumpkin-decorating workshops for Halloween.
And, of course, there’s always the chance of running into the Great Pumpkin…
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PRACTICAL INFO
Where? Benoit Vernier Farm, 560 69th Avenue, Saint-Zotique, Quebec, Canada, J0P 1Z0
When? Every weekend between September 12 and November 1, 2026, Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and on Thanksgiving Monday, October 12, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
How? General admission for adults starts at $13.05 /tickets are available here, and you must purchase your tickets in advance (NO TICKET SALES ON-SITE)
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