Whale Tails

South Burlington, Vermont, United States

Public art

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Listed, not yet checked · Oct 2026

This Big Thing is recorded as still being here.

Whale Tails (formally Reverence) is a 1989 sculpture by Vermont artist Jim Sardonis of two whale tails carved from African black granite. It stood in Randolph for about a decade before moving to Technology Park, South Burlington, beside Interstate 89 in 1999.

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Whale Tails

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44.44561° N, 73.14314° W

FIELD GUIDE

The story

Two black granite whale tails rise from a meadow beside Interstate 89 near Burlington, a long way from any ocean. Reverence, as the sculptor titled it, is better known as the Whale Tails, and drivers between exits 12 and 13 pass it in a blink.

Vermont sculptor Jim Sardonis carved it in 1989 from African black granite. Yankee magazine gives its weight as 36 tons and its height as about 13 feet; Technology Park says 12 to 13 feet. Sardonis told Seven Days in 2019 that the idea came from a dream of two whale tails emerging from the sea while he stood on a beach. Burlington City Arts says the design was a finalist for a museum front in Anchorage, Alaska, but the cost of bronze exceeded the budget, so a friend planning a hotel in Randolph commissioned it in granite instead. Yankee instead describes a planned conference centre. Neither building went ahead, and the tails stood in an open field there for about a decade, becoming a landmark on the interstate.

When the property sold, Burlington City Arts says, the new developer saw the piece as a liability. In 1999 Technology Park Partners bought it and placed it where it stands today, as the centrepiece of a walking path. Sardonis says it was meant to represent two whale tails diving into an imaginary sea of grass, and Technology Park says it is meant to symbolise the fragility of the planet. The artist says it was chosen for the cover of the textbook A World of Art.

Seven Days notes that beluga fossils have been found around Lake Champlain, once an inlet of the sea.

Yankee reports that Sardonis later made a second, 16-foot bronze, Whale Dance, installed in Randolph in July 2019. To see the granite tails up close, Trail Finder lists a 1.7-mile loop that starts on Community Drive off Kimball Avenue.

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PRACTICAL

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WHAT TO EXPECT

Granite sculpture in a South Burlington business park, seen from I-89 and reached on foot. Trail Finder lists a 1.7-mile loop path from a trailhead on Community Drive.

ACCESS

Outdoor sculpture in Technology Park, South Burlington, beside I-89 between exits 12 and 13 (per Technology Park). Trail Finder gives the trailhead as on Community Drive, off Kimball Avenue; follow the path across the field.

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