Trolling in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota
Seeing the Thomas Dambo Trolls around Detroit Lakes, MN | July 2026
After our weekend spent around Bemidji, it was time to continue heading further South. When considering the things we could do in Minnesota between Bemidji and the Iowa border, there wasn’t a lot that interested us, and it was far too hot and humid to comfortably take on walking another long distance bike trail. However, if we went a little out of our way to the West, we knew of some places that interested us more, so we decided the extra mileage was worth it to make the most of this trip. We planned a route that would maximize the amount of counties we could get, then got on the road bright and early.
We took US-71 South to near Itasca State Park, which is around where the headwaters of the Mississippi River are. We skipped the actual park because of the fees (this was Wisconsin’s year for a state park pass — Minnesota had a turn in 2021 and will maybe get another year in the future if we have enough places we want to visit). Instead we continued further West to Island Lake Management area. Here was a peak that Curtis was very interested in getting, which is one of the most isolated peaks in the United States. Or maybe Curtis just wanted a peak, and this was the only one around. I had intended on hiking with him, but as soon as we arrived at the road leading to the peak, bugs started swarming around the van and I knew this wasn’t for me. Curtis made his hike as quick as he could, because as expected, the bugs were as bad as they looked. With nothing else here for us, we continued on the gravel road heading South through the forest. There sure are a lot of pine trees and lakes in this area, and I’m sure in the right season it can be much more enjoyable…but today, during one of the hottest weeks of the hottest months of the hottest year on record, just wasn’t the best day. 30 million mosquitoes may disagree with that, but we certainly weren’t going to stick around to hear them out.
Next, we drove South to Detroit Lakes and to our main focus of today. Here surrounding this area are a number of trolls and other creations by Danish artist Thomas Dambo. There’s a whole creative story that goes along with these creatures, and they even stretch out as far as Fargo, ND. We wouldn’t be going that far out of our way, but we were still excited to have a reason to explore this area and see more trolls. Even better, someone had come through and planted letterboxes for each of the creations that featured excellent carves, which made for a fun souvenir for our visit.
Our first stop was at Detroit Lakes City Park on the North side of Detroit Lake to see our first troll, Alexa. When we had gone troll hunting a few months earlier in Clinton, Iowa, we had seen a lot of other people coming out to see the trolls as well, which made sense because they had been built and opened to the public just that month. However, we found the trolls here to be just as popular despite being here for a few years, which was surprising given how small and out of the way this city felt. But I guess that’s the magic of these trolls, that people will travel far and wide to see them, even on a hot day like today.
After seeing Alexa, Curtis went in search of the letterbox and we walked around the park a little before getting back on the road to see the next one. We weren’t exactly the most efficient with how we planned to see them, but we did our best. Our next stop was Southwest of town, at Dunton Locks County Park. If it had been any less hot, this would have been a cool spot to stay and go for a longer walk. But with as hot as it was, we limited ourselves to just walking a quarter mile to see the troll. After taking our pictures and finding the letterbox, we walked back to the parking lot where we had lunch under the shade of a pavilion.
Next, we drove back into town where we stopped at the Historic Holmes Theater. There isn’t a whole troll here, just an arm that ‘sticks out’ of the building’s walls and plays into the story Dambo made up about these trolls. After a quick stop, we were back on the road again. Next, we drove up Detroit Mountain, which is a ski resort in the winter and a mountain biking/hiking area in the summer, with two more sculptures on different trails. We first went one way to see Long Leif, then another to see the Golden Rabbit.
Our next stop was to see Barefoot Frida at the Ortenstone Gardens & Sculpture Park. Again, another fun looking place that we could have spent more time at, but the afternoon sun was getting worse by the minute. On a positive note, Curtis had been having great success at finding all the letterboxes, usually while I was taking pictures of the trolls or hurrying back to the van to get out of the heat.
After that, we left Detroit Lakes and made our way Southeast to the town of Frazee, where our last troll for today was. As we made our way through the small town to a trailhead, we thought surely there wouldn’t be many people out during this hot afternoon. As it turned out, right before reaching the trail, we had to pass by a park with baseball diamonds where there must have been a tournament going on because it was packed with probably half the county sitting out there watching kids play. We made it to the Wannigan Park Trailhead where we found that we actually got to walk a section of the North Country Trail in order to see the troll. Besides the heat, it was a nice area, with a covered bridge over a small stream. We found our last troll, took a break in the shade to relish our accomplishment, then walked back to the van.
At this point, it was still only 2 in the afternoon, and we were desperate for a way to pass the rest of the day and somehow stay cool. We decided to drive to the small beach park we had seen on our way into Frazee, and there we spent the rest of the afternoon, going between being in the lake, the shade, and standing under the cool, refreshing water of the outdoor shower. The lake had an off-putting smell, but we didn’t care, we had found a free way to get through the heat. There was also the World’s Largest Turkey statue across the road with an accompanying letterbox, which Curtis managed to get during that time.
As afternoon faded into evening, we finally got back on the road and drove to Perham, where we saw our last of Thomas Dambo’s creations for the day, another arm coming out of a building near Turtle Race Park. From there, we drove another 45 minutes Southeast to a free campground near Deer Creek. It was a small area that had several RVs packed in, but we found a space for our relatively tiny van and settled in for the evening. It was actually a nice spot with restrooms, a dump station, free potable water, and a pavilion where we sat and ate our dinner. We were proud of ourselves for making it through another hot day, and managing to have a lot of fun along the way!
