A tired-looking giant who has been a popular attraction on Vancouver Island for decades has found a new gnome home after years of neglect.
Howard the gnome, who has stood by a stretch of highway in Nanoose Bay for 21 years, is getting a new lease on life and long overdue refurbishment on a farm.
Built in 1998 by Ron Hale as a mascot for the amusement park that he and his family once owned, the current owners want Howard gone.
The nearly eight-metre-tall statue has been gifted to a farmer in Saanich, where he will be refurbished and given a robotic arm.
Rob Galey, who runs Galey Farms, has an eclectic collection of statues where he believes Howard will fit right in.
“I envision that he will be in an area all on his own,” Galey said.
“One of the things I asked them is can I make him wave and they said ‘yes,’ so now he’s going to be Howard the waving gnome.”
The move should mean Howard remains a popular B.C. tourist attraction for years to come.
The world’s largest garden gnome according to the Guinness Book of World Records, Howard is starting to show his age after giving drivers the thumbs up for more than two decades.
The figure has become dilapidated, his hands cracked and his beard covered in moss.
When the Hale family sold the property it became a gas station on the condition the big guy would stay on-site and be maintained.
That hasn’t happened, with the family being told by the owners of the Chevron gas station that they want him gone.
But the public have been warned not to swarm the farm just yet as Howard is going to be in a building under repair all summer long.
Hale’s granddaughter Bridget Matewish's said Howard needs a “good bath.”
“He used to be really pretty but these days he is not looking so good,”Matewish told CTV.
The giant figure was nicknamed “Howard” after a former employee who worked at the Hale’s amusement park.
