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Other stories in "Festivals"

• Great winter festivals
  Enjoy the chilly season with snow sculptures, ice castles, sleigh rides and lots of hot chocolate.
• Great spring festivals
  It's a good time to indulge in brews, birding and blooms.
• Great fall festivals
  Here are the best of the fests in 2010.
• Big apples
  In Bayfield, a fall festival has grown to jumbo proportions.
• Celebrating roots
  No matter where you're from, there's a festival for you.
• Critter races
  In Minnesota resort towns, creatures great and small run for the money.
• Great holiday festivals
  In November and December, check out Santa, Scrooge and shopping markets.
• Toasting Oktoberfest
  Festive tributes to Bavarian tradition put the oompah into fall.
• Great summer festivals
  Here are the best of the fests in the Upper Midwest.
• A German Mardi Gras
  At New Ulm's Bock Fest, the good times roll in on a tide of beer.
• Owl aboard
  In southeast Minnesota, a live-wire named Alice is the star of a late-winter festival.
• Birding in spring
  When the birds return, festivals follow.
• Waking the dragon
  A sport inspired by ancient Chinese legend takes off on local waters.
• Tulip Time in Pella
  In central Iowa, the Dutch celebrate colorful origins.
• A feast of festivals
  At small-town shindigs, get your fill of strawberries and sauerkraut, kolacky and sweet corn.
• Home of the eelpout
  In February, a Minnesota fishing town lets loose.
• Polish for a day
  At Milwaukee's lakefront festivals, visitors get a big helping of another culture.
• The coolest days of winter
  Ditch the indoors to watch ski-jumpers, dog-mushers and snow-sculptors.
• Jolly Cedarburg
  In southeastern Wisconsin, a historic village has perfected the art of the party.
• Cozying up to the Cornish
  A fall festival honors the miners who left their mark on Mineral Point.
• Great grape stomps
  At harvest festivals, compete with your feet.
• Bash on a bike trail
  Kick up your wheels at a small-town fall festival.
• Everyone loves a parade
  When a town marches, its entire history unrolls before your eyes.
• Agate stampede
  Every year, Moose Lake introduces budding rockhounds to the thrill of the hunt.
• Dancing on the Yellow Medicine
  In history-filled river valley, a wacipi celebrates Dakota culture.
• Nordic nirvana
  Every July, Decorah puts on one of the best fests in the Midwest.

Horror around the corner

Spoiling for a fright? In October, ghouls lurk at historic forts, boats, mills and lighthouses.

It began with a sepulchral fugue, crashing through the frigid steel corridors. Then there was a shriek. And throbbing blood-red lights.

At a fork along a curtained gantlet, a hand-lettered sign advised, "Choose wisely.'' We chose. Another sign said, "You chose poorly.'' Then the ghouls began to crowd in, chattering like monkeys: "Where you goin'? Where you goin'?''

A skeleton slowly turned to face us. We climbed a Plexiglass ramp over an open coffin and into an electrocution chamber. A tortured face poked out of the wall. Behind us, the tunnel closed.

A haunted house? No, a haunted ship — a real claustrophobe's nightmare.

There are a lot of haunted houses around Halloween, but why not try something more original —  say, a haunted lighthouse, copper mine, schooner, mill, airplane hangar or fort. Here's where to go to be scared out of your socks.

Haunted trains: In Green Bay, the Impaler stalks the National Railroad Museum, where Terror on the Fox includes a ghoulish ride on a vintage train, a forest maze and four attractions with Animatronics, including the 3D Third Dimension of Fear.  Tickets benefit charities and are $14 with train, maze and Main Event, $22 with all four attractions. Sept. 25-Oct. 31.

In Duluth, the Terror Train is a traveling Halloween party on a vintage train between Duluth and Two Harbors — costumes are required. There's a band on board, and more music during a two-hour stop at the American Legion in Two Harbors and after midnight  at Fitgers. Tickets are $28. Reserve at 218-727-9077. Oct. 24.

Haunted Lighthouse, Ontonagon, Mich. This 1866 lighthouse, 12 miles east of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park on the Upper Peninsula, will be the scene of a wake for a young woman who died of diphtheria in the lighthouse in 1885. Warning: You'll see dead people. Reserve at 906-884-6165. Oct. 23-25.

Haunted fur-trade forts: On the south end of the Mackinac Straits in Mackinaw City, Mich., skeleton Redcoats patrol Fort Michilimackinac, and werewolves lurk along the palisades. Walk a trail lit by lanterns and listen to French voyageurs tell eerie tales during Fort Night. Oct. 9-10.

At the North West Company Fur Post on the Snake River in Pine City, Minn., there’s been a murder, and visitors try to solve it by lantern light during Mystery at the Fur Post: Murder in the Museum. Oct. 17.

In Thunder Bay, Ont., ghosts and various sinister characters take over labyrinthine Fort William Historical Park, where guests are led by candlelight during Haunted Fort Night, for ages 10 and up. Reservations are required, 807-473-2344. Oct. 23-25 and 29-31.

Haunted ships: In Duluth, the 610-foot ore carrier S.S. William A. Irvin once was the Great Lakes flagship of U.S. Steel. But in October, it's taken over by university theater students, who take full advantage of its narrow hallways and rooms full of hidden nooks and crannies, turning the Irvin into the Haunted Ship.

Tours of the six-story Irvin, which is chilly and slightly creepy even on a summer day, will be given the evenings of Oct. 2-3, 8-10, 14-17, 22-24 and 28-31. Admission is $8, $6 for children 12 and under.

On the western shore of Lake Michigan in Manistee, Mich., the 78-year-old S.S. City of Milwaukee, which once transported whole freight trains across the Great Lakes, becomes the Ghost Ship. It's open Fridays and Saturday nights through Oct. 31. Admission is $7, $5 for children and seniors, but it's not recommended for children under 9.

Haunted schooner, Chicago: On Navy Pier, the 148-foot four-masted topsail schooner Windy evokes the ghosts of the Great Lakes on its Spirit Ship and Haunted Harbors Sailing Tour, Oct. 2-4, 7, 9-11, 14, 16-19, 23-25 and 28. It's $24, $20 for students and $10 for children 3-12.

Haunted High Ropes Course, Lanesboro, Minn. Are your Halloween plans up in the air? Imagine walking on a cable three stories above the forest floor, with nothing to hang onto except a rope swaying overhead. Now imagine doing it at night, helped along by ghouls.

That's the Haunted High Ropes course at Eagle Bluff Environmental Learning Center, just west of Lanesboro, Minn., on a bluff overlooking the North Branch of the Root River. It's 6-10 p.m. Oct. 30, and the $15 tickets go fast; call 507-467-2437.

Haunted Hangar, Oshkosh, Wis. At the EAA AirVenture Museum, the lights will go off and the ghosts will come out to haunt this cavernous repository of aviation history. There's a Slightly Haunted Hangar for young children on Saturday. Oct. 23-24.

Haunted Mill in Nelsonville, Wis. Cracked wheat . . . or cracked bones? Drive 14 miles east of Stevens Point to the 1868 Rising Star Mill on the Tomorrow River to find out . . . but don't get crushed by a grindstone. It's put on by the Stevens Point Area YMCA Boys and Girls Clubs, and there's an early showing each day for younger children. Tickets are $8, $4 for youths over 12. Oct. 29-31. 

Haunted copper mine in Hancock, Mich. There's nothing more claustrophobic than a mine, so watch who you run into on the haunted Quincy Mine Tours in this Keweenaw Peninsula copper town. Tickets are $10, $5 for children 12 and under. Reserve in advance at 906-482-3101. Oct. 28-30.

  Last updated on October 22, 2009