I’ve passed thru a couple sculpture gardens on the North Country Trail, the first one caught me off guard as I was walking through the woods and found this:

A horrifying effigy of a horse with human hands bursting from its neck to deliver unto you a human (?) heart. Once you realize you are in a sculpture garden and not transgressing unto a grove which cultists use for their activities… then its okay.

This first garden had some delightfully unsettling pieces. like the horse above, but also these masks sitting on stakes, serving as a warning to all those who hike the NCT thru NY. Without context and coming thru at night could’ve been real weird.

While this boat may not have been in a formal sculpture garden, or be as unsettling without context, it still counts as sculpture. Located on a little bit of roadwalk soon after the NCT merges with the Buckeye Trail (BT) in OH. It even has portholes! If it was after dark and I came upon this I’d be half tempted to sleep inside, but I guess then I’d be the creepy one.

Pushing the dial even further from fear into whimsy, here’s a couple from Lākenenland in MI’s upper peninsula! Not 100% on the story of this place, and it’ll probably feature pretty prominently in a future trip log. This place is really cool though, the guy even maintains a pretty nice shelter there too. (with a door, and cots!)

P.S. a year ago today I finished the AT, I may have to abbreviate a little more in the logs if I wanna catch up before I’m done.