Saturday Adventures: Troll Hunter

Troll Hunter!

When Indy Anna Bones heard of troll sightings in the Pacific Northwest, she knew where to start her quest.

The Peculiarium was a compact collection in Portland of all things mysterious and macabre, watched over by a full-sized Bigfoot.

She had come for the fortune-telling Krampus, but Indy Anna took some time to inspect a display detailing the black market organ trade.

Indy Anna Bones had a background in Spontanous Human Combustion, and found herself distracted by the in-depth research.

With her guard down, Indy-Anna fell prey to a pair aliens with a round of experiments on thier mind.

She found the Krampus in a back hall but she had to be close to hear him whisper.

The fortune he whispered was cryptic, but Indy-Anna was able to decipher the location.

Trolls lurked under a train trellis on steep McNamee Road in the town of Burlington.

These were not the trolls she was expecting.

Dozens of plastic, frizzy-haired creatures were nailed and glued to the mouldy wood.

Trolls climbed bravely to the top of the ancient structure.

No one was quite sure how it started.

The population has been growing for years.

Clearly this was a labor of love.

On her way back to the car, Indy Anna became acquainted with a friendly snail.

The snail told her to find a real troll, she would need to go to Seattle.

Two hours north from Portland, Seattle is the metropolitan hub of the Pacific Northwest.

She started her search on the waterfront.

The Pike Place Market is one of the oldest continuously-operated farmers markets in the United States.

Pike Place is famous for thrown fish, a coffee flavor, and a concrete pig that accepts donations.

In an alley out back she found the Seattle Gum Wall slick with saliva and the Seattle rain.

Inside she found the shoes of the World's Tallest Man.

The boardwalk was seabird-friendly.

A salty seagull informed her she must seek the Center of the Universe if she wanted to find a troll.

The Center of the Universe is a signpost in the Fremont neighborhood that directs travelers to all the notable places, from the Lenin statue one block away, to the 11,000km trek to the city of Timbuktu.

The sign was rooted on a median so thin she had to squeeze between moving vehicles to get directions to the troll, two blocks away, straight up hill.

Indy Anna found the beast beneath a bridge.

The monster was massive, like the trolls of old Norway.

In its outstretched hand, it crushes a real VW Beetle.

The "Fremont Troll" was created by Steve Badanes, Will Martin, Donna Walter, and Ross Whitehead in 1990.

The site was a shrine to all of Seattle culture.

Indy Anna concluded the PNW trolls posed no threat to safety, and she set out abroad for the next adventure.