Participants will have their pick of fright intensity at the Sweetbriar Nature Center’s annual Spooktacular on Saturday, Oct. 12 with the biggest scare consisting of pop-out figures ready to startle those who dare intrude. The event takes place from 6-9 p.m. and is designed for those ages 7 and up.
Veronica Sayers, program coordinator at this 54-acre wildlife and rescue facility in Smithtown, recalls how the haunted trails launched during the pandemic when outdoor activities became essential. The site’s now retired education director, Eric Young, had started Spooktacular as an indoor/outdoor event many years ago, she said, but COVID pushed the event to the grounds, which include a network of trails.
“I got a lot of ideas from going to haunted trails upstate, and we didn’t really have any on Long Island so I thought it would be fun to do it here,” Sayers told South Shore Press.
Since some like frights but others avoid them, the Halloween trails are not all designed to produce goosebumps.
“They can look forward to some dark trails, some scary trails where we do have people who come out and scare you in the woods. That one is called out Eerie Trail,” Sayers said.
As an alternative, the Jack-O’-Lantern Trail has no costumed creatures to give the jitters, just light-up and decorated pumpkins, Sayers said. There’s also the Lantern Trail, which she describes as pretty and not a scream.
The trails chosen for this event are easy for families and most participants to navigate and allow guests to discover nocturnal animals not visible during the center’s regular visitor hours.
New this year is what’s cooking up in the Mad Scientist Lab pop-up tent where participants can try to identify what they’re touching inside a guessing box, she said.
“There’s going to be some mad scientists that might pop out while you’re in there,” she said.
The weather will determine what other creepy crawlers might be on hand—maybe some hissing cockroaches or a tarantula.
As far as other Halloween-themed creatures, she said, “We usually have some kind of creepy animals out,” such as an owl or two, a possum and bunny or "Bunnicula."
Rounding out the event will be music and music videos, snacks like cotton candy and popcorn, as well as beverages for purchase and an opportunity to shop for unique gifts among crafts vendors. According to a flyer, creepy games and a ghostly graveyard will be part of the festivities. This year, participants also are invited to come in costume for a contest.
Priced at $20 a ticket, Spooktacular is one of the Nature Center’s biggest fundraisers with proceeds helping in the care and keeping of rescued wildlife.
“We have more animals than we’ve had in previous years because there’s a wildlife rehabilitation center that closed down at the beginning of this year,” Sayers said.
She added the Nature Center rehabilitates wildlife when an animal is hurt or orphaned with the goal of releasing them back to their habitat if possible. Even domestic animals like lizards that lose their homes have been welcome at Sweetbriar, which today manages more than 100 permanent inhabitants in their menagerie.
When not rescuing animals, Sweetbriar is also engaged in natural science education all over the island and even to Queens, staying true to its roots as a traveling natural science group more than 50 years ago.
To find more about Spooktacular visit sweetbriarnc.org. The center is located at 62 Eckernkamp Dr.