Long Beach, WA

The saga of the skeleton began in May 2000, when a dead gray whale washed up on the flat, sandy beaches of Long Beach. What would Long Beach do with a 40-foot, 18-ton whale carcass? City officials thought the skeleton would make an interesting display on an interpretive trail they were building along the beach to nearby Cape Disappointment, according to an Associated Press article at the time, so the decision was made to bury the whale on the beach and allow its body to decompose. But the vandals soon arrived. People slowly dismantled the skeleton over the years, and by 2013 it had been reduced to a pile of rotting bones.

Disheartened but not defeated, Long Beach officials hatched a new plan. They hired local artist Joshua Blewett, known for his detailed wooden sculptures, to recreate the entire skeleton, bone by bone, out of wood. That turned out to be easier said than done. He decided to scrap the skeleton plan and instead carve a small pod of gray whales out of a single 14-foot log. The creative process was once again a struggle, but eventually the whales emerged, complete with carved-on barnacles. In 2015, the wooden whales were installed on the same spot where the skeleton once sat. There, it has sat undisturbed except for the wind, sun and rain, which have weathered the whales artfully.

And if you poke around in the grass beside the sculptures, you can still find what remains of the old gray whale: a small pile of old, gray bones.