Mysterious 'gnome home' inspires community to make B.C. park magical
After four decades of living next to a dog park, Pat says what happened to the tree stump was a first.
“We wondered what happened,” she says.
All the people here this day were wondering who turned a stump into a 'gnome home.'
“Who knows?” one woman laughed. “Maybe it was a gnome.”
Perhaps. But it was definitely — all the dog walkers at the park today said — “a mystery.”
A mystery until now.
“I was thinking I got to do something with that stump,” Carmell Nesbitt recalls thinking.
She, and her husband Tony, could see the dying tree from her living room window, before it was cut to a stump, and remained untouched for months.
“It was kind of bothering me that it was there,” Carmell says more than half a dozen stumps had been left in the park.
“I just wanted to make something happy with it,” Carmell says. “And see what would happen.”
So she asked Tony if he could make a miniature roof and some tiny windows.
“It wasn’t something I wanted to do,” Tony says. “But I did it.”
He did it, because the couple credits 45 years of being happily married with always find fun things to do together.
“We try to make each other laugh every day,” Carmell smiles.
And perhaps — if they secretly constructed a gnome home in the park at night — they could have a coffee in their living room and see people smile from afar every morning.
And they did. Tony says dozens of people of all ages would congregate around their creation.
“And I thought, ‘Well, I guess it wasn’t such a bad idea,” Tony smiles.
Then Carmell came up with an even better idea — decorate the home for Halloween, Christmas, and now Valentine’s Day. She never imaged her gnome home would spark a gnome village.
“I think good deeds perpetuate themselves,” Alli Jones recalls being excited when she first saw the gnome home and then inspired.
She and her husband Jason Tucker made one of the sad stumps smile, by attaching eyes, nose and a grinning mouth to it.
Their neighbour's children, Norah and Laurel Whiteside, united for a magical makeover, adding bright decorations and whimsical characters to another stump.
Other members of the community added creative touches to more stumps, and now almost every tree that was chopped had been transformed with some sort of cheer.
“It puts a smile on your face,” a regular dog walker says.
“I think it’s really nice for the neighbourhood,” another smiles.
“It reminds me of my childhood,” a senior laughs. “[Happy] stories about elves and fairies!”
And now it’s no mystery, that Carmell’s reminded this community that no matter what happens, you can always find a way to make it feel like there’s no place like gnome.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Large numbers of New York City police officers begin entering Columbia University campus
Large numbers of New York City police officers began entering the Columbia University late Tuesday as dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters remained on the campus.
Poilievre kicked out of Commons after calling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau 'wacko'
Testy exchanges between the prime minister and his chief opponent ended with the Opposition leader and one of his MPs being ejected from the House of Commons on Tuesday -- and the rest of Conservative caucus walking out of the chamber in protest.
Baby, grandparents among 4 people killed in wrong-way police chase on Ontario's Hwy. 401
A police chase which started with a liquor store robbery in Bowmanville Monday night ended in tragedy some 20 minutes later when a suspect fleeing police entered Highway 401 in the wrong direction and caused a pileup which killed an infant and the child's grandparents, as well as the suspect, investigators say.
Freeland leaves capital gains tax change out of coming budget implementation bill, here's why
Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland will be tabling yet another omnibus bill to pass a sweeping range of measures promised in her April 16 federal budget, though left out of the legislation will be the government's proposed capital gains tax change.
Sword-wielding man attacks passersby in London, killing a 14-year-old boy and injuring 4 others
A man wielding a sword attacked members of the public and police officers in a northeast London suburb Tuesday, killing a 14-year-old boy and injuring four other people, British authorities said.
Man dies after suffering cardiac arrest while waiting in ER, widow wants investigation
When an ambulance took David Lippert to the hospital in March of 2023, the 68-year-old Kitchener, Ont., executive was hoping to find out why he was feeling weak and unable to walk. Some 24 hours later, he was found unresponsive in the ER.
CSE says it shared information on Chinese hacking of parliamentarians in 2022
While several MPs and senators say they were only recently made aware of China-backed hackers targeting them, the Communications Security Establishment, one of Canada's intelligence agencies, says it shared information about the incident with parliamentary officials in June of 2022.
WATCH Arnold Schwarzenegger spotted filming in Elora, Ont.
The name of the project has not been officially released although it’s widely believed to be the Netflix series FUBAR.
Eviction for landlord's use was legitimate, despite owners' partial move, B.C. court rules
A B.C. judge has upheld the eviction of a family from their North Vancouver townhouse, finding that the landlords did not take an unreasonable amount of time to move into the home after the tenants vacated it.