Salt Lake City 9th and 9th whale sculpture's cultish following grows with each winter storm

SALT LAKE CITY — In April of 2022, a giant rainbow whale went up in the middle of an intersection in a quirky Salt Lake City neighborhood.

In the one year since it’s been there, the 9th and 9th whale has gathered a cultish following, and many Utahns credit the sculpture with bringing record-breaking snow to our state.

Riley Adamson started "The Church of the Sacred Whale of 9th and 9th" last November.

“If you don't believe in the Sacred Whale yet, with all this snow, you've got to believe in it," he said. "Everything good that happens in the weather is because of the Sacred Whale, and everything bad is that we just haven't had enough faith.”

The Church of the Sacred Whale has a following that grows with each winter storm — Utahns taking to social media, singing their praises for the snow that has brought incredible ski conditions and a relief to the drought.

READ: Utah's snowpack is now 201% of normal and climbing

“Public art, that's one of the things it does," said Renato Olmedo-González, the public art program manager for the Salt Lake City Arts Council. "It makes people have conversations about things that matter to them, about things that are important, and everybody has their own meaning that they attach to either an artwork or a piece.”

The whale’s artist didn’t intend for a new religion to be born out of his work, Olmedo-González said.

“It's a place where a lot of people from different backgrounds, different beliefs come together, and a whale being ‘out of the blue’ was sort of a way that the artist wanted to talk about the neighborhood," he said. "He lived here for a while, and how he felt like a whale in the desert, and how he was embraced by the community.”

Whether you believe in the whale’s powers or are still skeptical, Adamson says everyone can appreciate what a whale in the desert represents.

“We need to make sure that the environment is well taken care of and that we respect it, and also respect each other," he said.