After vandals attacked his sign, he delivered a spellbinding comeback.
Chris Gillander, a candidate in October’s Yellowknife municipal election, faced a dilemma when one of his signs was vandalized with purple, white, and orange spray paint.
Whoever attacked the sign had added a purple devil’s trident, a scruffy, white beard, and an orange tag in the bottom right-hand corner.
The graffiti didn’t seem to be coming off, and Gillander did not have the budget to go and get another made.
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His solution: cover up the graffiti… by turning himself into a wizard reminiscent of The Lord of the Rings’ Gandalf.
Spraying over the vandals’ work, Gillander turned the trident into a wizard’s staff, expanded the graffiti beard into one of truly magical length, and added a hat for good measure. He covered over the orange tag with his own initials.
“Gandalf is making the best of a bad situation,” Gillander told Cabin Radio by phone on Monday evening.
An election sign belonging to Chris Gillander appears in its vandalized form.
Referring to his campaign volunteers, he added: “We looked at it this morning, and between us we decided this was the best way to go.
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“The graffiti that was on there already had a bit of a framing to go the ‘wizard’ route.”
The depiction was fitting, he said, adding: “I’m a bit of a nerd, myself.”
Gillander’s travails follow news of Niels Konge, another election candidate, cleaning the signs of some rivals after they had been similarly attacked last week.
