A Winnipeg man is hoping his latest hobby lifts the spirits of Winnipeg residents.

Paul Leullier lives in the Sturgeon Creek area and has discovered a new passion: placing handmade reindeer models around Sturgeon Creek Park. Making the reindeer figures for years as gifts for friends and family, Leullier wanted to know if other people would enjoy seeing them at the park.

"I decided to try a little experiment, if you like, by putting a reindeer model out on the Sturgeon Creek, because I am in that the particular area fairly often, just to see what would happen," he says. 

Leullier says that people appeared to enjoy seeing them, and began adding more, one by one.

"It is easy to do and I enjoy doing it."

Making each reindeer himself, Leullier's collection had grown to 57, with some of those 57 figures part of larger sets.

The crafter often leaves 41 of the reindeer in the park but brings the rest home with him each day.

"I see the results of my work every time I go to the park. The kids, whether they are three or 83 they all love them."

He says many people use the reindeer as part of a scavenger hunt. Leullier says he will move one or two each day.

"There was one family there this morning. The found the soccer players behind the trees, close to the Grace Hospital parking lot. And an hour later, this four-year-old boy could not figure out why now, the soccer players were now 200 feet away underneath some different trees by Grace Hospice."

Leullier says when he is at the park people recognize him. 

"These new people come over and ask me all kinds of questions," he says. "There are a lot of kind people in this world and I see a lot of them in this park."

Leullier does not plan to continue leaving reindeer in the park next year but hopes people remember them.