Wisconsin Dells especially haunted around Halloween
You can tell that a spooky adventure truly hits the mark when it scares your kids not only during the outing, but continues even when they get home.
So it was with the Ghost Boat: Season of the Witch experience in the Wisconsin Dells this past weekend. It so unnerved my children that they insisted we roll out the sleeping bags and camp out together in the living room when we returned to Madison.
One of the Dells Boat Tour offerings, the trip runs through the end of the month on Friday and Saturday nights and is probably the most hair-raising Halloween experience you can have in the Dells this fall. For good reason, the Ghost Boat is not recommended for children under 11.
Our visit — on an appropriately gloomy day — began around dusk with a visit to the Spring Grove Cemetery on the east side of town. This burial ground is full of graves dating back more than 150 years.
The plot we sought belonged to Belle Boyd, a young Confederate spy who used her feminine charms — so the story goes — to pry information from Union officers. She toured the country for years after the Civil War, regaling audiences with her stories. On a visit to the Dells in 1900 at age 56, she died of a heart attack. It’s said that her ghost wanders the paths of the cemetery to this day.
Later, while the kids waited outside, I got a quick tour of the 100-year-old, wedge-shaped Showboat Saloon in downtown Wisconsin Dells. Andy Olson, who has worked at the saloon for nine years, showed me the basement area where a ghost named Molly frequently knocks bottles off shelves.
“I’ve never personally seen her,” he said. “But plenty of others have and I won’t come into the bar by myself when the lights are off. Call me a chicken, but I won’t do it.
“My co-workers have seen the front door open on its own a lot, faucets have turned on and off and glassware has fallen from shelves. Others have heard voices. But no major damage.”
Molly’s real name was Madge Stanton, who lived upstairs in the 1930s. Olson, manager of the Showboat, said he doesn’t know why her spirit continues to reside in the saloon — though she may be because she died in the building.
“We did have some experts in about five years ago and they detected heat patterns and got a lot of readings,” he said. “So I say ‘hi’ to her every morning. I don’t want to make her mad at me.”
A chilly wind rippled the water as we got on the Ghost Boat an hour later. We were quickly chugging upstream to Cold Water Canyon in near pitch-black darkness. Our 15-minute passage was enhanced with eerie music and a narration that told of the witches, goblins and other apparitions that had haunted the waters and cliffs of the Wisconsin River since long before Europeans arrived.
We soon arrived at Witches Gulch and began a trek into a barely lit and narrow sandstone gorge that was filled with skeletons emerging from graves, scattered body parts and actors posing as authentic specters, crazed clowns and other sorts of phantoms that sometimes fill bad dreams.
Along the way, crazed men and women dressed in rags screamed at us and other demented souls leapt out from their hiding places. But as long as we kept moving, we were able to stay free of their clutches.
At the turnaround point, a demented and bloody doctor was operating on what looked to be a long-dead corpse. As we waited to begin the return trip, a phantom with a huge, fresh wound on the side of his face, zoned in my 16-year-old daughter, raised his axe and scared the bejesus out of her as she cowered next to a railing. Then he laughed and stepped away.
But the demons weren’t done with us yet. As we walked back down the trail, a bald spirit leaned in, made blood-curdling sounds inches from us and started my daughter screaming again. We couldn’t wait to get away from him.
We continued down the dark canyon trail 50 yards, only to be confronted by a demonic clown armed with an all-to-real-sounding chain saw. When he fired it up, we fled toward the waiting boat — not wishing to have any our body parts become part of the Witches Gulch collection.
Fortunately, my daughter didn’t have any bad dreams that evening. But in her 14-year-old brother’s nightmare, the clown met his demise at the end of a rope. Yikes.
Getting there: The Wisconsin Dells are 125 miles east of Milwaukee via Interstates 94 and 90.
More information: All Ghost Boat tours leave from the Dells Boat Tours’ main landing dock, 11 Broadway in downtown Wisconsin Dells. Tours begin loading at 8:15 p.m. and depart at 8:30 p.m. Ghost Boat tickets are $23 for adults ages 12 and older. The trip is not recommended for children 11 and under. Reservations are required. Call (608) 254-8555.
Other Halloween activities in the Dells include:
Spooky duck races in the Wilderness Resort (wildernessresort.com) waterpark, mask-making, horse-drawn wagon rides to a mini-pumpkin patch, trick or treating, and a Family Halloween Bash on Oct. 28.
A scavenger hunt, Halloween temporary tattoos, wagon rides, a costume contest, parade, and trick or treating at the Chula Vista Resort (chulavistaresort.com).
Pumpkin, cookie and cupcake decorating, candy corn bingo, and trick-or-treating at the Kalahari Resorts (kalahariresorts.com) on Halloween weekend.
Collect goodies along the treat-or-treat trail during the costume parade, and then dance at the Great Wolf Lodge (greatwolf.com/wisconsin-dells/) Monster Bash party.
Guests of all ages are encouraged to dress in costume and collect candy around the Mount Olympus Resort (mtolympuspark.com). A live DJ will be mixing a monster mash of music. The tone is “Not-So-Spooky,” so bring the little ones.
The Country Bumpkin Farm Market & Lil’ Bumpkin Play Village (countrybumpkinent.com) has a 2.5-acre corn maze and fun questions to help you through the stalks. There’s also a petting farm, straw cave, pumpkin patch, farm train ride, and punkin-smashin’ catapult.
Red Ridge Ranch Riding Stable (redridgeranch.com) has both a corn and hay maze, plus pumpkin painting, a petting zoo, hay and trail rides.
The Haunted Mansion of Baldazar on Broadway has nine dreary dungeons draped in dreadful decor, plus moving monsters and other ghoulish things.