Add a giant Lake Ronkonkoma Princess carving to the roadside attractions on Long Island that include the Big Duck and Stargazer.

 

Artist Todd Arnett carved a Long Island legend into a tree that sits on the property facing Lake Ronkonkoma. The Lady of the Lake is a warning, a ghost story, and a romantic tale, one that involves a Native American princess and forbidden love.

 

Lady of the Lake sculpture at Lake Ronkonkoma. Photo: Lon Cohen.

 

The story goes that Tuskawanta, an Algonquin princess, falls in love with a European woodcutter but her father forbids her from marrying the young man. The distraught princess kills herself in a boat in the middle of Lake Ronkonkoma and every year afterwards she takes the life of a young man, drowning him in the lake, looking for her lost lover - or exacting revenge, the details are a little shaky.

 

Read: Crazy Facts About Lake Ronkonkoma.

 

Arnett made the first cut in 2017 and the entire sculpture was completed this year using chainsaws for the most part and grinders. The likeness of Princess Tuskawanta stands atop a tall trunk from a dead European copper beech tree.

 

A sign at the site of the sculpture described the ;local legend. Photo: Lon Cohen.

 

According to a story reported in the New York Times, the tree was brought to America in 1820.

 

“The trees originate in Scandinavia and live for 600 years in ideal circumstances. This was one of five ordered from England, shipped to New York, picked up by the Newton Family of Ronkonkoma and brought by horse and wagon to its current location, according to Ellyn Okvist, president of the Lake Ronkonkoma Heritage Association. The tree once stood 100 feet before it died and its branches were trimmed off in 2015.”

 

The sculpture sits on the property of Virginia Schutte, who owns a florist shop next door. A man working at the shop commented that hundreds of people have stopped by to take pictures of the wood carving of Princess Tuskawanta, who gazes at Lake Ronkonkoma, holding a cormorant.

 

Although the accuracy of the legend is questionable, Arnett and Schutte said that they hope the statue will help the ghost of Princess Tuskawanta find peace and end the drownings.