(Click and click again to enlarge photos)

This is a Postscript, updating these earlier “Now & Then” columns:

• June 8, 2023, Marvin Oliver totem poles
• Sept. 2, 2021, Tacoma totem pole

Published in The Seattle Times online on Dec. 23, 2023
and in PacificNW Magazine of the printed Times on Dec. 24, 2023

Poles Apart:
The fate of 3 totem poles removed in
Seattle and Tacoma remains up in the air

By Jean Sherrard and Clay Eals

IN SEATTLE, hidden near two poles lying in a Seattle Parks lot in Discovery Park, Marylin Oliver keeps a whisk broom.

During visits from her Kingston home, Oliver retrieves debris from the 50-foot-long carved cedar poles. In November, she left a note asking visitors to show respect.

Commissioned from renowned Native artist Marvin Oliver (Marylin’s late brother) by Seattle architect and preservationist Victor Steinbrueck, the poles stood since March 1984 near Pike Place Market, framing a Puget Sound panorama while paying “tribute to the culture and heritage” of indigenous peoples.

Last April, as part of the city’s reconstruction of Victor Steinbrueck Park, the poles were unbolted from their plinths and delivered to Discovery Park, where they have rested side by side, unprotected from the elements.

Lisa Steinbrueck, a conservator with a master’s in museology — and Victor Steinbrueck’s daughter —worries about their exposure. “If one wanted to slowly destroy the poles,” she says, “this is how to do it.” Oliver adds, “They should be moved into dry storage.”

Unlike the poles, no moss has grown on Oliver’s efforts. Planning for repair, she enlisted Makah carver Greg Colfax, who examined the poles and says that despite significant decay they can be restored.

Seattle Parks, however, recently reversed its long-held position. Having originally committed to repair and reinstall the poles, it petitioned the Pike Place Market Historical Commission to authorize the poles’ permanent removal. At its Dec. 13 meeting, the commission denied that application. Parks will have the opportunity to appeal.

The Oliver/Steinbrueck poles remain in Discovery Park. In mid-December, they were covered with tarps.

Oliver continues to sweep and hope for the poles’ reinstallation. The fate of her brother’s collaboration with Victor Steinbrueck remains up in the air.

THIRTY MILES south, the Puyallup Tribe holds the fate of the severed 1903 totem pole that stood for 118 years in downtown Tacoma before the city removed it from Fireman’s Park on Aug. 3, 2021. That morning, the city chainsawed the pole into six pieces.

Topped by an eagle, the pole reportedly was carved by Alaskan Natives hired by Tacoma businessmen, but by 2021 the city had deemed it inauthentic.

The city initially gave the tribe the pole’s mid-sections, retaining the top and bottom for interpretation by the Tacoma Historical Society. Its director, Jessica Smith, says a display might have examined cultural appropriation. “But we didn’t have the space or funding to stabilize these pieces for pests,” she says. So the top and bottom also went to the tribe.

The tribe confirms it is storing the pieces but hasn’t said what it will do with them. At Fireman’s Park, the pole’s stabilizing frame stands bare. The city says it might partner with the tribe to commission Coast Salish art for the site if grant funding surfaces.

Meanwhile, the historical society, which in 2015 revived “Eyes of the Totem,” a locally produced 1927 silent movie featuring the pole, has deactivated its online film-download portal, citing finances. “The cost,” Smith says, “was higher than the number of people purchasing or renting it.”

“Eyes” provides a “great snapshot” of 1920s Tacoma, Smith says, but it is “one of many parts” of Tacoma’s story, which includes the city’s historically “complicated” relationship with the tribe.

WEB EXTRAS

No updated 360-degree video this week because of technical difficulties. But you can see Jean Sherrard‘s 360-degree video from the Sept. 2, 2021, blog post on the Tacoma totem-pole takedown, and hear that column read aloud by Clay, by checking it out at this link.

Below, you also will see two additional videos. In the first one, Mick Flaaen, part of the team that restored the 1927 silent-film melodrama “Eyes of the Totem,” introduces the film Nov. 12, 2023, at the Blue Mouse Theatre in Tacoma’s Proctor District. The film was made entirely in Tacoma by H.C. Weaver Studios. The Blue Mouse screening was part of the theater’s centennial celebration. The second video is the film itself.

Also, just added on Dec. 24, 2023, an evocative photo!