During an April 22 Montpelier City Council meeting, a group of city employees laid out a proposal to utilize Montpelier’s natural resources to promote outdoor recreation for economic purposes: fishing and white water rafting on the Winooski, hiking, and biking were mentioned. In response to their presentation, Councilor Ben Doyle suggested that maybe we should take a more nuanced approach. He said along with outdoor recreation, we should also focus on Montpelier’s food and arts scene in a holistic, all-encompassing way.
I agree with Doyle. We should focus on Montpelier as it relates to the arts and how being viewed as a city that embraces the arts could become a major economic driver for downtown businesses.
Montpelier already has numerous art venues, murals, sculptures, galleries, potters, painters, writers, poets, a mysterious Valentine Phantom, two movie theaters, Montpelier Art Walk, Wilder Arts Studio, the Drawing Board, the Center for Arts and Learning, the Clothespin Factory, the Montpelier Performing Arts Hub, Capital City Concerts, Lost Nation Theater, All Species Day, and let’s not forget, Orca Media. There’s even talk of a children’s museum in the future. So, more than anything else, I feel our town’s primary strength and very soul is in the arts.
What Montpelier doesn’t have, however, is a troll. Specifically, a Thomas Dambo troll.
Thomas Dambo is a Danish artist whose specialty is crafting giant wooden troll sculptures. These sculptures are found throughout the world. Kind of like Deadheads, Dambo’s troll fans travel from place to place to seek them out. They shop at local shops, eat at local eateries, and are known to spend a night or two in towns where trolls are located.
Dambo’s trolls are made entirely of scrap and recycled wood. When Dambo constructs these trolls, it’s a community event. Everyone gets involved. Kids and adults alike help out. It becomes an artistic festival of joy.
Dambo also creates river trolls. Imagine a giant river troll, sitting behind the spectators, all watching white-water rafting on the Winooski? This already exists — Providence, Rhode Island, recently acquired a river troll: Mrs. Skipper!
Vermont, too, has a Dambo troll called Lost Finn. All Dambo trolls have names. And their names don’t change, even if they happen to move, if the need arises. Lost Finn measures 30-feet high by 7-feet wide, and sits on a dirt trail back in the woods of South Londonderry, off a small lane.
Local news covered the tragic tale of Lost Finn in 2023, but, long story short, a Vermont couple loved Dambo’s trolls so much, they decided to pay a considerable sum to have one put on their property for locals to enjoy. What they didn’t anticipate, however, was how popular the thing would be.
Throngs came from all over the region — Canada and New England — yet the infrastructure in terms of roads and parking was inadequate to accommodate the crowds. The owners were forced to close the trail because the troll became overwhelmed with visitors.
Lost Finn can no longer be viewed by the public except for the privileged few. This wasn’t how it was intended to be, however. It was supposed to be a Dambo troll for Vermont, and word on the street is that Lost Finn may be ready to find a new home.
Because these trolls are a major tourist draw, there are already towns vying for Lost Finn. And because it has already been constructed, the sculpture just needs to be relocated and reassembled, bypassing the considerable time required to get a new one. The thing with Lost Finn is that he sits on a boulder. You need to have a boulder or ledge of a specific size and dimension for him to rest on, and not every town or municipality has such a boulder in the woods that’s accessible and of the right dimensions. But Montpelier may have such a feature — on the new Universally Accessible Split Rock Trail in Hubbard Park or even at the base of Montpelier’s iconic Stone Tower.
I propose we research this opportunity of acquiring Lost Finn. Let’s take a poll, get city approval, make a video to show our interest, find private funding, and let’s get Lost Finn to Montpelier where he belongs — a city that embraces the arts.
Please email our mayor and city council to voice your support for Lost Finn and the arts in Montpelier, at L-Council@montpelier-vt.org.
Christopher Therrien is a former restaurant owner and currently writes for The Bridge. He lives in Montpelier.
