'I'm going to continue to do it': Man undeterred after vandal attempts to destroy snow sculptures

Jared Clark loves to brighten his east London, Ont. neighbourhood with life-sized snow sculptures in the winter — and despite surveillance footage that recently depicted a real-life Grinch attempting to destroy the sculptures, Clark remains undeterred.

Jared Clark started creating snow sculptures at his Brisbin Street home nearly three years ago at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it has since become a passion project.

“It started bringing so much joy to the community, and just seeing people light up, and their kids,” Clark told CTV News London’s Jim Knight on Tuesday.

For example, Carson Dawdy and his daughter Danica are big fans of Clark’s work.

“Oh we love them in the neighborhood!” said Dawdy. “The kids love going up to them, and touching them, and seeing them. It’s a lot of hard work that went into them, so it’s nice to see.”

Clark explained that when he wakes up in the morning he typically goes to check on his snow sculptures. But when he woke up one morning recently to check on his three snow dog sculptures, he noticed something odd.

Surveillance footage depicts a man punch and kick snow sculptures on Brisbin Street in London, Ont. in January 2023. (Source: Jared Clark)

“There was some snow in the one eye, and one dog was missing his eye,” he said. “So I decided to look into it a little bit further and lo and behold, the camera footage caught it all.”

The security footage revealed that overnight a man had approached Clark’s snow sculptures and proceed to punch and kick them repeatedly. But despite the act of vandalism, Clark wasn’t as upset as you might expect him to be.

“I kind of stopped laughing after watching the footage, but, payback was [kind of] given,” he said. “The dogs gave a little bit of bite, and it was pretty fun.”

Clark said it can take between three to five hours to build his sculptures, while the most elaborate ones can take upwards of 12 to 24 hours to complete.

Still, he remains determined in his mission to brighten his neighborhood.

“It’s unfortunate that it happened, but I’m going to continue to do it and make sure that I make people happy, and I’ll do it every year as much as I can as long as we have snow,” said Clark.

— With files from CTV News London’s Jim Knight