North Logan Pumpkin Walk
North Logan Pumpkin Walk
The North Logan Pumpkin Walk is such a fun tradition in my hometown! Every October, volunteers come together and create Pumpkin Walk scenes along a pathway. The scenes are created from pumpkins, squash, gourds, cornstalks, and other fall vegetation. Each scene tells a story, with painted pumpkin heads topping popular characters from books, movies, and pop culture. Character bodies are stuffed like scarecrows or built completely from vegetables, with lots of creative props involved. The scenes are lit up at night, with intricately painted backdrops and music accompanying every scene. Hundreds of glowing jack-o-lanterns light up a pathway while thousands of people ooh and awe over the scenes.
History of the Pumpkin Walk
The Pumpkin Walk began in 1983, when Ida and Wally Beutler set up a fall pumpkin display on their farm. Ida was a former elementary school teacher and wanted to create something fun and family friendly for Halloween. Unfortunately, some boys vandalized the display, but the police caught them and brought them to Ida to apologize. Ida invited the boys in for a treat and arranged for them to help make another display the following Halloween. They did, and Ida also invited family, friends and neighbors to help, including Nancy Israelsen (my husband’s great-aunt), who was a wonderful artist. Find out more about the history here.
The big Pumpkin Walk entrance panels were painted by Nancy Israelsen while she was in her 80’s!
A North Logan Tradition
Ida and Nancy were the creative forces behind the (now legendary in Cache Valley) Pumpkin Walk. Their husbands Wally and Lyle offered support and helped put displays together. Just a few years after it began, 20,000 people attended the Pumpkin Walk at the Beutler farm. Eventually popularity grew so much, the logistics of holding the Pumpkin Walk at the Beutler Farm became problematic. Ida agreed to let North Logan City adopt the Pumpkin Walk and hold it at Elk Ridge Park, on the condition that it remain free of charge and free from advertising. While Ida and Wally Beutler and Nancy and Lyle Israelsen have now passed away, their posterity, friends, and neighbors continue to keep the Pumpkin Walk tradition going as strong as ever each autumn.
A Family Tradition
Over the years, more and more people in the community have gotten involved in creating Pumpkin Walk scenes, including my family. My grandpa once built a functioning water wheel for a Swiss Family Robinson scene he helped with in the 80’s, and my family started creating our own Pumpkin Walk scene with the help of neighbors, family and friends in the mid 2000’s. There were a few years we couldn’t make a scene, like the fall when my grandpa passed away, and during the years I lived in Arizona, since my mom and I are the main creators of our scene these days. But once I moved back to Utah, I was really excited to get the tradition going again.
A Tribute to Rosemary Wells
For our first scene after a few years’ break, we decided to create a scene celebrating the characters of Rosemary Wells. Rosemary Wells is the author/illustrator who created Max and Ruby along with many other beloved animal characters. The Max and Ruby books, Yoko’s World of Kindness, and Timothy Goes to School inspired our scene. I enjoyed making this scene, but wow, I really underestimated how tricky it would be to use spray insulation foam!
Behind the Scenes
I used the insulation foam to add shape to the pumpkins for the animals’ ears, beaks, glasses, cheeks, etc. An unhappy discovery: hot glue does not adhere a cardboard armature to a pumpkin very well. And once dry, spray insulation foam, though it sticks to everything else, doesn’t stick to pumpkins terribly well. Skewers came in handy to poke through the foam sculptures and hold them to the pumpkins. An electric bread knife allowed me to carve the spray foam into the shapes I wanted, though it proved a messy process. My mom sewed the costumes, using mainly fabric in her stash and clothes from previous Pumpkin Walks. I painted the pumpkin faces, which were super fun to paint, especially the cute characters in the bus windows.
2021 Pumpkin Walk
I hope you enjoy these photos I took of the 2021 North Logan Pumpkin Walk! So many, many volunteer hours and so much creativity go into every scene. I love seeing the other scenes created by neighbors and friends! Every year I see a new clever way someone has put pumpkins and gourds together or repurposed junk to make props and it’s just incredible.
North Logan Pumpkin Walk | Cache Valley Photographer
