There is a new troll in Issaquah! Danish Creator Thomas Dambo has planned to build 6 recycled trolls in Washington, and four are already complete. You may have seen or heard of them already, one being in Portland, one on Bainbridge Island, and another in West Seattle. The newest wooden troll is here on Rainier Trail.
Many students at IHS have stated that they have noticed spontaneous crowds appearing on Rainier Trail. Students said Rainier Trail was not too crowded on average. Why, you might ask, are there sudden crowds on the trail? All the people are there to see the new troll.
Some know about this troll, while others are curious to learn more. You might wonder, why Thomas Dambo makes these wooden creatures. According to the artist himself, asked by euronews, “I hope that my art can be a part of the movement that shows people that trash is not disgusting and it’s not worthless and it’s not something you should just burn.” Senior Faith Doughtery says, “It’s just really creative. I just feel like most people would just not have thought of things like this.”
The Snoqualmie Tribe worked with Dambo to create our troll. The tribe hand-weaved the bracelet on his wrist and his hair tie. John Halliday, AKA Coyote, says, “Working shoulder to shoulder with Thomas and his team was a real trade of our respective cultures. I feel we are kindred spirits and have formed life-long friends. I’m proud to be part of the Dambo tribe now, too!”
Thomas Dambo is also known to give his trolls personalities and names. Our Issaquah troll is called Jakob Two Trees, and you can find him on Rainier Trail. The troll’s figure is grasping two trees, hence the name. While many students thought the height of the troll was 15 to 20 ft, the actual height of this great sensation is approximately 14 feet tall.
Thomas Dambo works on projects every year. Since 2010. In 2016, Dambo made 24 creations, mainly in his home country, Denmark, but also in Australia, the USA, Germany, Puerto Rico, and Brazil. Although most of his works are found all over Denmark, you can click this link to find all his northwest works, and visit Thomas Dambo’s website to see his worldwide projects. The trolls are very well known across the world. Sophomore Mark Morozov states, “I know of trolls in Colorado and Scandinavian countries and a lot of places.” The Colorado troll is called Isak Heartstone, located on the Trollstigen Trail in Breckenridge. If you would like to know more about this troll, go to Denver Gazette.
Thomas also drafts original poems for each troll. The Rainier Trail troll poem goes like this: “A hundred circle suns not old, ‘cause time will stretch, and loop and fold, so stop, breathe in- breathe out, behold, the trees have sung, the story is told.” If you would like to learn the other NW troll’s names and poems, visit NW Trolls and click “Find Me” on the troll of your choice to read its poem.
Although Dambo has many creations across the globe, he has made about 120 wooden trolls. His 100th troll is a very secret one he calls “The Moon Mother.” He has gone to extreme lengths to keep the location of this special troll secret, including having his workers take different paths to the site daily so as to not leave footprints for tourists to follow. According to euronews , “Thomas Dambo has created a complex treasure hunt to find ‘Moon Mother,’ his 100th troll sculpture of a pregnant mother, who he says has ‘crawled into the most secret spot in the forest’ to give birth.” Maps have also been created to find these trolls worldwide. Although a quick Google search will usually give you the answer to anything, it will not give you the exact location of each troll.
According to GeekWire News, when asked approximately how much these creatures weigh, Dambo answers, “We use approximately five tons of scrap wood building one troll. There’s 12 million tons of scrap wood that’s driven to the landfill every year in the United States, scrap wood that had the potential to be recycled. And that’s enough for, I believe, 2.4 million trolls a year.” If you have not seen the sizes of Dambo’s trolls, our troll is made of about five tons of scrap wood. As he said, he could make 2.4 million trolls in one year from our recycled wood. To put this into perspective, Jamaica’s total population is 2.8 million people. Remember this when you think of making recycled projects.
We have all seen vandalized art. Some people guess that the troll will be vandalized, and freshman Praveena Krishnan says, “I really hope the troll isn’t vandalized, but I can’t say whether or not it will be. If it is, the method of vandalization will probably be spray-painting.” Unfortunately, most believe it will be vandalized in some way, shape or form. Most guesses included toilet-papering and spray painting. However, Thomas Dambo has had few vandalism problems. According to the interview from GeekWire News, “I haven’t had too many. I think the difference between vandalism and terrorism is that vandalism is something that you just do by coincidence when you pass by and you’re in a bad mood. And terrorism is something that’s planned, where you go and search out a specific location. How many people want to be the troll terrorist and are so mad at the troll and look at the treasure map to find it to only go and destroy it? I think those people might just kick their neighbor’s mailbox or something.”
Dambo hopes people are affected in a positive way by his trolls, saying, “I hope that they’ll just get a little whimsy in their life and they’ll be smiling. Or crying if they’re scared — that’s also OK. And I hope that all the local people who have come together here to help and create it that they will carry on the story. It was 14 days and a crazy crew from Denmark and 50 volunteers and a whole mountain of scrap wood — and then we created this. What else could we build out of our trash? Rather than building our landfills bigger and bigger and our nature reserves smaller and smaller?” He poses a good question. According to Environment America, the average American produces 4.9 pounds of trash each day and approximately 1,800 pounds of trash every year. Plus, 331.9 million people live in the USA. So, I know most of us hate math, so I’ll use an online calculator for you all. 331.9 million people times 4.9 pounds of trash is approximately equal to 1.6 billion pounds of trash produced every day in the U.S. We could reuse one piece of our daily trash and lessen the great load we produce substantially. While on the topic of recycled art, Krishnan stated she had previously made “contraptions and dioramas out of cardboard boxes” and Doughtery said she used recycled paper to make origami. Just doing these simple acts saves us from a whole lot of waste. Recycled art plays a vital role in creativity and environmentalism. According to Doughtery, “I think it’s such like a great idea because it’s such an impact but it also like influences other people to want to make art too.” A junior student says; “Recycled art gives back beauty to the community.” Recycled crafting can save both our minds and our planet. Water Colors By Design states; “Even recycled materials must use resources to be ready for reuse. Re-purposing recyclable waste eliminates the need to use more natural resources. We could make a huge impact on the environment if each of us re-purposed one day’s worth of trash.” If you would like to learn more about recycled art and how it saves our planet, please visit Tomorrow’s World Today.
