When Burnaby Central Secondary Grade 12 student Kipper Pallister was about six years old, he loved fairies – and believed in them – so he was devastated when a girl at school told him they weren't real.
His great uncle was outraged when he found out what had happened and set out to revive his great nephew's spark of wonder.
"The next time I went over to his house, he took me and my siblings out into his backyard, into the garden," Pallister said, "and he had made a little fairy portal and a little fairy door and there was glitter everywhere. He wanted to bring back my joy and my belief."
That great uncle, Paul Harris, died this summer, but Pallister recently found a way to express his gratitude – an enchanted gingerbread fairy forest dedicated to his memory and currently on display at the Hyatt Regency in Vancouver.
The creation, designed, baked, built and decorated by Pallister and two friends at Burnaby Central, Grade 11 students Sofia Figueiredo and Angellika Marsh-Beauchemin, recently won second place in the hotel's 32nd annual gingerbread lane contest.
Billed as Canada's longest-running gingerbread lane, the competition is a fundraiser for Make-A-Wish Canada, which grants wishes for children facing critical illness.
The event draws more than 20,000 visitors every years and features entries from local professionals, amateurs and high school students.
Pallister and Figueiredo are enrolled in the Burnaby school district’s professional cook program, where Grade 11 and 12 students can complete their Level 1 certification for free while still in high school through the province's Youth Train in Trades Program.
Instructor Stephen Schram said competitions are a good way for students to move beyond the classroom and see what others in the industry are doing.
But the annual gingerbread contest isn't for the faint of heart, he said.
"I don't sugar-coat it," he said. "There's a point where you going to want to quit, I always tell them."
That's no exaggeration, according to the Burnaby Central team.
For more than a month-and-a-half, the group spent four days a week working on the fairy forest after school from about 2 p.m. to 7 p.m.
"It was an exhausting project," Pallister said. "I would have 12-hour days."
Figueiredo said she sustained a foot injury spending so many hours in her kitchen shoes, and she had to work with seven stitches in her index finger after cutting herself with a butter knife at Thanksgiving.
Most time consuming were the details, tiny hand-crafted leaves, rocks, mushrooms and more, they said.
The result, according to Schram, was a "really solid theme" capable of transporting the viewer much like a good story.
"I just felt they did all those little detail things really, really well," he said.
After the initial wave of relief that the project was finally over, the team said they were almost surprised at the quality of the final product.
"I honestly didn't know I had all these skills," Figueiredo said.
Pallister said he was happy the team got to share the product of their labour with others.
"It was so lovely putting all this hard work and getting to see something for it," Pallister said. "And people saw that and recognized that."
But there was one person he was particularly happy to show the fairy forest to last weekend – his great aunt.
She knows the story of what her late husband did for him and was sure to understand the dedication included on the project's nameplate:
"In loving memory of Paul Harris, who rekindled our belief and brought us endless joy."
Follow Cornelia Naylor on X/Twitter @CorNaylor
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