More than 800 scarecrows take over Charlottetown as part of annual festival

The Charlottetown Scarecrow Festival is back for its fifth year. (Source: Discover Charlottetown)

If you’re a crow, you might want to avoid Charlottetown for the rest of the month.

A new crop of straw-stuffed visitors has filled the streets of the P.E.I. city this October as the Maritimes officially turns away from summer and embraces autumnal colours and themes.

The fifth annual Charlottetown Scarecrow Festival launched on Friday with hundreds of figures setting up shop on corners, parks and other parts of the city.

“We often call it our ‘COVID baby’ – something we dreamt up during a darker, lonelier time as a way to bring some joy, colour, and life back into our little city,” said Hayley Cardiff with Discover Charlottetown. “It was also designed to bring more people downtown, offering extra support to our local businesses when they needed it most.

“This year, we’re expecting to see over 800 scarecrows set up in clustered installations throughout the downtown core.”

The original 2020 festival got off the ground thanks to a few local artists, including Becca Griffin, who created the scarecrows from scratch. Griffin, the program coordinator with CreativePEI, helped organize artists for this year’s festival.

“(Discover Charlottetown) commissioned us because we’re pretty connected to the artist community,” Griffin said. “The scarecrows don’t make themselves. They were looking for a new crop of artists and scarecrows.”

CreativePEI put out a call for submissions in August and got displays from Logan Fulford, Annie and Marissa Ladéroute, and Carina Philips. They also received community projects from Krishna Dilwaldi, Vander Weagle, Chenyuan Xiao and Kelly Simpson.

“I met (Vander Weagle) years ago and he was so interested in scarecrows then,” Griffin said. “He’s grown into this cool artist and he’s just as passionate about scarecrows as he was back then. He built five scarecrows.

“Kelly Simpson made a scarecrow that’s head is an oyster. It’s her interpretation of an oyster shell around the pearl. It looks like it’s meant to be in a fishing village.”

CreativePEI also hosted a scarecrow “building bee,” which saw community members make 40 scarecrows for the festival.

“This is such a really niche thing to give families the chance to make,” Griffin said. “It’s an opportunity to make something new. When you see them on the street, they’re all different and they have their own personality. Always make sure to implant some of your personality into it.”

Despite the influx of new scarecrows, Cardiff said many of the original characters from the 2020 festival are still in use. Griffin said artist Julie Doneff is keeping them alive with much-needed revitalization this year.

“A lot of the scarecrows you see year after year are her creation,” Griffin said. “We’re hoping to use them as many times as we can. It’s hard to keep them alive for that many years. This year she was able to revitalize and triage some of those scarecrows.”

Cardiff noted the festival serves as a strong tourist attraction during the shoulder season. Aside from the scarecrows, the festival offers haunted hotel rooms, movie nights, patio parties, ghost tours and wagon rides.

“The festival acts as an umbrella for a variety of whimsical and spooky programming,” Cardiff said.

The Scarecrow Festival runs from Oct. 3 to 31.

For more P.E.I. news, visit our dedicated provincial page.