‘Worthy of a try’: Alberta man builds miniature model of legislature

A man in Edmonton has recreated the Alberta legislature building out of wood slivers. CTV News Edmonton's Amanda Anderson has the story.

Two years later, a hobbyist’s miniature reproduction of the Alberta legislature is complete.

“(Shirley) is getting frustrated now because I don’t have one on the go, so I’m in her way all the time,” Esmond Warren joked of his wife.

Building the mini legislature was exactly the challenge Warren had been seeking.

His daughter and granddaughter got him into building landmark replicas out of match sticks about a decade ago. After London’s Tower Bridge, Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral and the Taj Mahal, Warren had run out of pre-fabricated kits that interested him.

“(The legislature) is a beautiful building and I thought it was worthy of a try,” he told CTV News Edmonton during an interview on Tuesday.

“So we went down to the legislature and I stepped it all off to get the measurements in relation to one another, took a lot of photos, and then came home and got to work.”

He recalled, “The security guard was looking at me a little bit carefully.”

While Warren’s hand-drawn map sufficed for construction of the lower part of the building, he studied aerial footage to build what he hadn’t been able to see from the lawn.

He also cut all of his own wood slivers for the project. It may have been tedious for someone else, but the former farmer enjoys working with his hands.

The trickiest part was the building’s domed roof, which required Warren to cut the wood on a curve.

All together, he dedicated his free time over two winters to complete the reproduction.

“Everybody that’s seen it has been very, very impressed with it,” Warren said, noting he was “pleased” himself.

“But you know, now what am I going to do with it? I would like to put it somewhere where it could be displayed.”

He’s hoping to get the mini displayed within the original.

Up next? Perhaps an homage to Bath, England.

“They have a beautiful abbey there and I’m toying with the idea of trying to do that one,” Warren said. “I was confirmed in it, so I would really like to do it.”

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Evan Klippenstein