MELFORT — Folks in Melfort will start to see wood spirits carved into trees and gnome homes made out of stumps at the Spruce Haven Recreational Area, as local carvers set to work for the city.
This is part of the larger Spruce Haven Fairy Forest Project, which includes fairy doors being installed in the area.
“The park is beautiful and it just adds a fun aspect going into the park. We’re trying to minimize the numbers at the skatepark, and the play park there,” said Kathy Gray, program coordinator with the Kerry Vickar Centre.
“Of course, as you know, we can have a maximum of 30 in an outdoor space. This kind of creates an area where people can go while they’re waiting until the parks are a little less populated.”
While the carving parts of the project were done by local volunteer carvers, the fairy doors were designed by local families through a “family night”.
“We’re probably going to have a storytime, take the families through the forest, find the doors, and then at the end of that we organized some little landscaping things.”
The landscaping involves some miscellaneous items around the fairy doors such as iridescent marbles, rocks and flower pots.
Gray described walking through the park as a “magical feeling”.
“We’re just trying to create an area that feels fun and magical for kids to go through. We’ve got over 50 doors hung now, and we’re probably adding more.”
She said the gnome homes have been carefully chosen, and will serve to be a much more attractive sight than regular stumps.
“We planted 185 trees in the park recently, and have plans for more. So keeping our trees healthy is certainly an important part to that.”
The carving was done over a two day session, with the opportunity for the carvers to return and add more if they so choose.
“They do meet here at the Kerry Vickar Centre Monday nights,” Gray said. “They’re a very active, very skilled group, and they’re always willing to take on new members.”
