'I'm going to continue to do it': Man undeterred after vandal attempts to destroy snow sculptures
'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.
Canada needs a 'Conservative renaissance,' former prime minister Stephen Harper said Wednesday, but he cautioned that Pierre Poilievre should wait until an election before telling Canadians how he might run the country.
U.S. President Joe Biden is coming to Canada Thursday evening, kicking off his short but long-awaited overnight official visit to Canada. Here's what CTV News has confirmed about what will be on the agenda, and what key players are saying about the upcoming visit.
Canada's Ambassador to the U.S. Kirsten Hillman says the country’s relationship with its American counterparts required rebuilding after the Trump administration.
WW International appears set to close dozens of its roughly 118 WeightWatchers locations across Canada on March 26 in what may be part of a restructuring strategy.
The death toll from last week's massive fire in Old Montreal has risen to four, Montreal police confirmed Wednesday evening. Julien Levesque, a police spokesperson, said a third and fourth bodies have been retrieved from the building. They will be sent to a laboratory to be formally identified.
The Better Business Bureau (BBB) says it receives tens of thousands of complaints from consumers across Canada each year, but once in a while a "quirky" one will take them by surprise.
The Canadian real estate market has been sluggish since last year, when prospective buyers started putting off plans to purchase homes as the Bank of Canada aggressively hiked interest rates eight consecutive times. But realtors see many edging toward a purchase once more.
Remembering the night he fatally shot Beau Baker outside a Kitchener apartment on Brybeck Crescent in April 2015, Waterloo Regional Police Service (WRPS) Staff Sgt. Eric Boynton - who was a patrol officer at the time - testified he was worried about Baker killing himself or others.
A LaSalle man is in serious condition and facing an impaired driving charge after a car collided with an attached garage of a home, according to police.
When Windsor, Ont.’s Environment, Transportation, and Public Safety Standing Committee meets next Wednesday, they’ll revisit the conversation around train horns keeping Walkerville residents up at night.
A Tottenham woman faces impaired driving charges for allegedly blowing four times over the legal limit after crashing into a vehicle in a school parking lot.
The family of a woman who died by suicide in November 2020 while incarcerated at the Sudbury Jail is suing police and other officials for more than $2 million.
Northern College said it hopes the Ontario government will consider funding its trade programs -- this after being left out of a $224 million funding announcement for skilled trade centres.
Ontario Provincial Police responding to a different call March 17 discovered a driver slumped over the wheel in a running parked car on Main Street in the Town of Thessalon.
Environment Canada has issued a freezing rain warning for Ottawa, calling for up to 2 to 4 millimetres of ice build up on untreated surfaces. The freezing rain is expected to last several hours before ending Thursday morning.
The city of Ottawa has released its list of road closures for the presidential motorcade and visit, starting Thursday when Biden arrives and ending Friday night after his departure.
An Ontario mother and father say their four-year-old was recently diagnosed with a brain tumour after doctors believed his symptoms were a flu-like virus for months.
A Toronto man who was shot multiple times by a police officer while he was walking his dog last month says more could have been done to de-escalate the situation that almost left him dead.
The death toll from last week's massive fire in Old Montreal has risen to four, Montreal police confirmed Wednesday evening. Julien Levesque, a police spokesperson, said a third and fourth bodies have been retrieved from the building. They will be sent to a laboratory to be formally identified.
The mayor of Montreal says she only had two requests of the Quebec government and one of them was ignored. Despite new buildings going up in Montreal, Mayor Valerie Plante says it's harder than ever for some people to find a place to live.
A Transportation Safety Board of Canada report has linked the fatal sinking of a Nova Scotia scallop dragger in 2020 to years of federal inaction on the imposition of stricter stability standards for fishing vessels.
A new political poll surveying Albertans ahead of May's provincial election shows a deep divide within the province, with the governing United Conservative Party and Alberta's New Democrats fighting neck and neck for support.
Wearing her husband's police jacket, Ashley Ryan walked to centre ice at a charity hockey game in Spruce Grove, Alta., Wednesday night. She, a paramedic, then dropped the puck on the matchup that Brett was planning to referee.
Wearing her husband's police jacket, Ashley Ryan walked to centre ice at a charity hockey game in Spruce Grove, Alta., Wednesday night. She, a paramedic, then dropped the puck on the matchup that Brett was planning to referee.
Alberta's premier assured a ballroom of rural leaders Wednesday that she does not want to see the province move away from electricity generated from fossil fuels, while complaining about solar panels covering farm land.
Dog owners in Trail, B.C., are being urged to keep their pets inside as Mounties investigate the deaths of two family dogs believed to have been poisoned with strychnine.
Surveillance footage depicts a man punch and kick snow sculptures on Brisbin Street in London, Ont. in January 2023. (Source: Jared Clark) 
