A kneeling wooden giant now calls the Adirondacks home. The Wild Center in Tupper Lake has unveiled Patrick Sapling, a permanent troll sculpture built largely from reclaimed lumber that depicts a kneeling figure lifting a living sugar maple tree toward the sun among a scattering of Adirondack boulders.
The sculpture was officially unveiled on Saturday, Sept. 12, according to Adirondack Explorer, and marks a permanent addition to The Wild Center's 115-acre campus, as The Daily Gazette reports. The outlet describes it as the first permanent Thomas Dambo sculpture in New York state, a distinction also reported by NEWS10 ABC.
Sources differ on exactly where Patrick Sapling falls in Dambo's body of work. The Daily Gazette calls it his 191st giant troll sculpture, while Adirondack Explorer describes it as his 190th troll and first in New York state. Either way, the artist behind the global Trail of a Thousand Trolls fairytale has now left a permanent mark on the park.
Built From Scraps, Named for a Fellow Sculptor
The troll was created primarily from reclaimed and recycled materials, per the same Daily Gazette report, including salvaged lumber, sawmill offcuts, branches and donated hardwood. According to North Country Public Radio, Patrick's cedar body was made from scraps harvested from lumber yards around the area, while its steel frame and the living sapling it holds came from local North Country businesses. About 200 boulders now surround the troll in its forest hideaway, the station reports.
The sculpture's name pays tribute to Patrick Dougherty, the American sculptor, the Daily Gazette notes. Dambo also wrote an original poem for Patrick Sapling that visitors can read at the site, continuing his practice of crafting a backstory for each of his works.
A Season of Record Crowds
Patrick Sapling grew out of a temporary exhibition that drew outsized attention to the North Country. Six giant trolls, part of a limited-time traveling exhibit called TROLLS: Save the Humans, attracted visitors to Tupper Lake throughout the summer and are scheduled to leave The Wild Center on October 31, according to the same NEWS10 ABC report. The Daily Gazette reports the exhibition helped drive the museum's highest attendance in its 20-year history, and North Country Public Radio notes crowds came to the Adirondacks from all 50 states and 13 countries.
The Wild Center told North Country Public Radio it had seen more than 160,000 visitors in the prior 12 weeks alone, calling it the most successful season in the institution's history. Adirondack Explorer reports that year-over-year attendance had more than doubled since June 1. The Wild Center's own site echoes that the exhibition, running from June 1 through October 31, 2026, brought some of the highest visitation in its history.
One Troll Stays Behind
While the traveling trolls depart at month's end, Patrick Sapling will carry on their mission to save the humans, per NEWS10 ABC's reporting. Dambo told the Daily Gazette that each troll takes between 1,000 and 1,500 hours to complete, and he estimated Patrick Sapling could “easily” remain at The Wild Center for 20 years if the museum wants it there and keeps it properly maintained.
Dambo has broader ambitions beyond Tupper Lake. “One of my goals is to put one in every state of the United States,” he told the Daily Gazette. New York is not alone in claiming a milestone troll — the California Nature Art Museum has described its own sculpture, Lulu Hyggelig, as California's first permanent Thomas Dambo troll, according to the California Nature Art Museum.
The Wild Center is offering tickets for visitors who want to see Patrick Sapling in person, NEWS10 ABC reports. Writer Cassie Hudson, who profiled the museum's Wild Walk treetop trail in 2025 — a route that lets visitors immerse themselves in fall foliage — authored the NEWS10 ABC piece introducing the new permanent resident to readers beyond the Adirondacks.
