Contentious Pike Place Market totem poles to be restored, returned

As Echohawk, who is of Plains Pawnee and Alaskan Ahtna Athabascan heritage, noted, totem poles weren’t originally created by this region’s Salish-language peoples. Though many local nations and artists — including the Jamestown S’Klallam on the Olympic peninsula and the Lummi Nation near Bellingham — have adopted totem poles for local commemorations, this artform originated among the coastal nations of British Columbia and southeast Alaska. They don’t represent the Coast Salish heartland, Echohawk told Cascade PBS, then known as Crosscut: “[T]he lack of cultural representation in the Native community turns into inequity, it turns into poverty, high homelessness rates. These kinds of issues have everything to do with people dying.”

City Council President Debora Juarez (Blackfeet) took up the cause, calling for more representative art, such as traditional Coast Salish welcome figures, instead. (Juarez declined to comment for this story.) In 2019, a planned park renovation, which required removing the poles to avoid damage, seemed an opportunity to make the switch. The anti-totem faction would just have to keep them from going back up.

But that would require assent from the Pike Place Market Historical Commission; by law, it must approve design and use changes in the Market, protecting it from the chain outlets that would love to occupy it and the sort of high-rise redevelopment the city attempted in the 1960s. And the volunteer commissioners were loath to discard landmark works so deeply embedded in the Market’s history and character, in a park designed by Richard Haag, who also created Gasworks Park, and Victor Steinbrueck, who led the campaigns that saved the Market and Pioneer Square from demolition.

Steinbrueck envisioned twin 50-foot totem poles as a belvedere framing the Elliott Bay view and, as he put it in a 1984 interview, an “homage to the Northwest Coast Indians who were here long before we were.” In the early 1980s, on the eve of the resurgence known as “the Salish Renaissance,” totem poles were still the default form for such tributes, for many local tribes as well as the mainstream culture. Monumental Coast Salish art, suppressed in the 1800s, was little known, and northern-style totem poles dominated popular taste, academic study, and Native carving. Steinbrueck enlisted the celebrated Quinault/Isleta Pueblo artist Marvin Oliver to create the poles.

Thirty-five years later, this refuge became contested ground. “Some Native people were really in an uproar about the poles,” recalls then-City Councilmember Sally Bagshaw. “They felt those poles were very insulting. And some said, they’ve been there a long time, keep them there. There was no tribal agreement on whether they should stay or go.”

Revisiting the poles

In September 2019 Juarez introduced a bill to fund the park renovation. The Market Historical Commission approved it, contingent on the poles being reinstalled before the park reopened.

Parks officials agreed to these terms, but behind the scenes they felt under heavy pressure from Juarez and Native communities to replace the poles with new works. After The Seattle Times’ “Now & Then” cited a project manager as saying “the poles likely will be reinstalled with fanfare,” Parks Superintendent A.P. Diaz sent managers an urgent email saying the report was “causing angst among the CP [Councilperson Juarez] and her staff, the indigenous communities and is being elevated intensely” and “causing a slew of issues.” Stay on message, he ordered, “something along the lines of ‘no final decisions have been made … ’”

In fact, Parks had long been developing a plan to replace the poles with another artwork. For 22 months, the city’s newly established tribal liaison sought to enlist the Muckleshoot and Suquamish tribes in replacing the poles with Coast Salish art; last November they finally confirmed they were “interested.” Parks hoped this would overcome the Historical Commission’s resistance.

Totem-poles defenders have embraced the goal of adding art, together with signage explaining the northern and Coast Salish traditions. But they ask why one must go to bring in the other. “You can’t take away the history of Seattle,” says Quinault member Marylin Oliver Bard, who is also Marvin Oliver’s sister. “There can be space for a welcome figure and the totem poles.”

Not so, Parks strategic adviser David Graves, who spearheaded the park project, told the Historical Commission: “If we were going to install anything new it would have to go where the poles are. There’s not another place in the park.” Sinking anchors would threaten the membrane protecting the parking garage below; leaks there had precipitated the renovation.

But only half to two-thirds of the park rests atop the vulnerable garage roof. Sculpture could be safely anchored in the most visible section, along Western Avenue. “They could put a welcome figure right here at the entrance,” says Heather Pihl, Friends of the Market president and the Historical Commission’s former staff coordinator.

As the debate progressed, it shifted to a different issue of authenticity: Were the poles Native or nonnative creations? While Marvin Oliver had selected the trees and started the work, he got hampered by other obligations and problems and fell behind. Steinbrueck, anxious to complete the poles for the 1984 park opening, stepped in and hired a nonnative carver, James Bender, to finish them.

Graves promoted a simple answer: Victor Steinbrueck designed them, “possibly with input from Marvin Oliver,” and Bender “and others” carved them. Ergo they were nonnative, inauthentic works.

This conclusion is belied, however, by extensive testimony that officials and media did not consider, including the recollections of Oliver’s friend Mike Watanabe, who helped him rough out the poles; Steinbrueck’s detailed project logbook, which credits Oliver with designing and roughing them out and carving the prominent orca fin on the Haida-style Untitled Pole; and Oliver’s designs, which Watanabe and Peter and Lisa Steinbrueck, Victor’s children, recall seeing.

Oliver himself took credit in a 2018 video-recorded presentation to the Historical Commission. “I designed [the Untitled Pole], I carved it,” in collaboration with Bender, Steinbrueck and others, said Oliver, who died in 2019. He pointed out elements he was particularly proud of, including adding a woman to the Farmer’s Pole and a Salish spinning whorl brandished by the raven on the Untitled. “I wanted to bring in the Puget Sound Salish,” he explained.

The Oliver name carries special weight along the Salish Sea. Marvin’s and Marylin’s father, Emmett Oliver, a trailblazer in Native higher education, launched the annual paddle gathering called the Canoe Journey, a beloved vehicle of cultural reconnection that, in one tribal chairman’s words, has “saved hundreds if not thousands of lives” from deaths of despair.

Such bona fides, together with details of the complicated Steinbrueck/Oliver/Bender collaboration, turned the tide. At last December’s critical Historical Commission meeting, all but two of the 23 people testifying, including all five identified as Native, wanted the poles to stay. “It would be stepping back into the 1800s to not have Martin Oliver’s carvings restored and respected,” said Bunni Peterson Haitwas — a daughter and protégée of the Skokomish carver Andy Wilbur Peterson, a leader in the revival of the Coast Salish tradition.

Even Colleen Echohawk has backed off. “Wherever the family wants is where the poles should go,” she now says. As for her earlier opposition, “We should set it aside. That’s how we do it in Indian country.”

Whatever pressure city officials received behind the scenes, local nations did not come out publicly against the poles.

Unprotected

The park closed in December 2022 and the poles came down in April 2023. The Parks Department, still intending to displace them, did little to protect the poles, leaving them uncovered on four-by-four blocks, above dirt, in an unattended and, by day, unlocked back lot at Fort Lawton.

Marylin Oliver Bard tried to take the initiative to protect and restore her late brother’s work, paying a retainer to Makah master carver Greg Colfax, who delivered a restoration proposal. Parks officials disregarded it. She visited the poles periodically to pull back and brush away vegetation. She and the Friends of the Market pressed the Parks Department to get the poles indoors or covered.

In December, after eight months’ exposure and heavy rains, Parks laid strand-board sheets with spacers over the poles and wrapped them in tarps. And it filed an application to deaccession the poles and replace them with unspecified future artwork. The Historical Commission rejected it, and the Parks Department appealed.

In March 2024, a hearing examiner rejected Parks’ appeal, affirming that the commission had acted properly. Parks officials said they would proceed with repairing and reinstalling the totem poles. They approached Corine Landrieu, an experienced conservator, who submitted a proposal in March. The Parks Department cast about unsuccessfully for a carver to assist. Colfax, queried by Landrieu, declined to collaborate, saying he disagreed with her approach. Marylin Oliver Bard resubmitted Colfax’s 2023 proposal to do the work independently.

Six months later, in August 2024, amid unseasonable rain and wind, a tarp blew open. Some strand-board sheets warped and channeled rainwater onto the Untitled Pole.

Parks spokesperson Rachel Schulkin dismissed concerns about possible effects of the exposure. “The poles have been outside for four decades since they were installed.”

Experts were more concerned. Historic architect Ellen Mirro examined the poles for the Department of Neighborhoods and reported that both had deteriorated, noting “a significant split or check in the wood at the base of the [Farmer’s] pole, major deterioration at the bottom three feet” and “significant ponding between the figures.” Deep recesses that shed rainwater when the poles were upright now collected it.

In March Corine Landrieu reported that “the situation has worsened,” with “green patches of biological growth” and “moss and small plants growing” on the Untitled Pole.

Some totem pole defenders suspected what’s called “demolition by neglect” in the preservation field. “If you want to destroy the poles, this is exactly how to do it,” historical commissioner Elisa Shostak charged at a September meeting. “This is so calculated it’s out of a John Grisham novel!”

At a later meeting, Heather Pihl presented before-and-after photos that seemed to show widened cracks in the Farmer’s Pole and a new crack running through the “messenger” face on the Untitled Pole.

Missed opportunity

After years of delay, Parks has started the renovation process, though it will probably not be finished anytime soon. Even that start has triggered a debate over who will perform it. On Aug. 23, Parks requested proposals for restoring the poles, due Sept. 30. None arrived by then. Corine Landrieu’s computer crashed and she submitted a late proposal on Oct. 2. On Oct. 3 Graves told the Historical Commission, “We will be moving forward with Corine.” Colfax meanwhile said he’d update his earlier proposal, then had a medical emergency and was medevacked from Neah Bay. Afterward, he got stymied by the reservation’s limited wi-fi service. He finally delivered a proposal via Pihl on Oct. 9.

At that night’s commission meeting, Graves offered various reasons why Colfax’s proposal was ineligible or inferior — some of which also applied to Landrieu’s: It came in late, it was “less detailed,” it was “in many ways” the same as his 2023 proposal, and he didn’t deliver it directly to the Parks Department. Graves did not explicitly denigrate or otherwise characterize Colfax’s qualifications, but he repeatedly extolled Landrieu as “highly qualified,” “skilled,” and “well-respected” in “a specialized field.”

Landrieu herself doesn’t doubt Colfax’s qualifications. “I know Greg is totally capable of doing it,” she said; conservation work he performed for Bellingham’s Whatcom Museum “looked good.”

Pihl charges that Parks failed to accord Colfax the “respect, dignity and assistance” due a Native bidder — turnabout for an agency that had been so assertive about upholding Native authenticity and sovereignty. At the Oct. 9 meeting, historical commissioner Sam Farrazaino, founder of Georgetown’s Equinox Studios, called it “odd” and asked Graves, “How does that meet the City’s commitment to racial equity and social justice?”

“It’s a woman-owned business,” Graves replied referring to Landrieu’s firm. “We could certainly open ourselves to liability if we were to open up the bid process to another contractor.” Not if a contract hasn’t been signed, Farrazaino replied. Parks pushed through a contract with Landrieu soon afterward.

Contract or not, Landrieu seemed unlikely to object. “Honestly, it’s fine with me if someone else does it,” she told Cascade PBS in early October. “I’m just doing it because nobody else is.” The project was, she noted, “a bit of a bear.” Technically or politically? “In all ways.”

Since then, the bear has lurched back and forth. At the Oct. 9 meeting, several commissioners signaled that they were ready to let the park reopen if Parks produced a signed contract, work schedule, monthly progress reports and temporary signage explaining the poles’ absence. Graves nodded eagerly, and Parks swiftly complied. It now anticipates finishing the restoration in late July 2025.

Farrazaino, however, remained wary of relinquishing what leverage the commission has. “So we’re still in the realm of intention, not commitment?” he asked. “Yes,” Graves replied. “At this point, our intention is to restore the poles as they originally were.”

After the meeting, I asked Graves why the Parks Department wouldn’t guarantee that.

“There are no guarantees in life,” he replied.

The Road to Repair

Pihl and Marylin Oliver meanwhile bypassed Graves and talked directly with Parks Superintendent A.P. Diaz and Deputy Mayor Adiam Emery, pushing for Parks to firmly commit to restoring and returning the poles. They seemed to get through. On Oct. 21, Deputy Parks Superintendent Andy Sheffer announced that the department “is committed to restoring the Victor Steinbrueck Park Totem Poles and reinstalling them on their plinths at the park.”

Some commissioners were mollified, but Farrazaino, a sculptor and general contractor, urged caution. “It seems unwise to start work on a historical artifact without a full restoration plan and structural engineer’s report,” he warned. “If you do things the wrong way, it may cause more damage to the poles and a structural engineer will say they can’t be put back … Parks has done the minimal attempt to appease us to get the park open. The public trust, our trust has been eroded to such a point I’m not willing to sign off.”

Corine Landrieu may have unwittingly piqued such concerns. With time short, Landrieu, who will be out of the country from December to early March, started work on the poles, after Parks managers “said ‘Go ahead.’” But they didn’t inform the commission, let alone get its approval.

Graves insisted that Landrieu’s cleaning and rot removal “will enable her to assess what needs to be done.” He and the commission will face off again on Nov. 13.

On the plus side, Landrieu’s surface work is unlikely to compromise future repairs. And, Landrieu says, now that they’ve dried, the poles “look pretty good”: the “bear” is not so bearish. She expects only small surface patches will need recarving. Epoxy, and perhaps fiberglass rebar, will do the rest.

Colfax reached a different conclusion. After tapping and listening for the dull thud that signifies rot, he believes the bottom eight to 10 feet of the Untitled Pole (the bear figure, as it happens) will need replacement.

The two restorers do agree on three things:

• Whatever damage the poles suffered while exposed isn’t grave; properly repaired, Colfax says, “they’ll last 40 years.”
• Whether patched up or replaced, the Untitled Pole’s lower section will no longer bear its weight; an extended metal brace, anticipated in Colfax’s proposal, will have to attach to it higher up.
• Most important, the structural engineer’s inspection, which has not been conducted, should come before restoration. Colfax stipulated he wouldn’t start without it; Landrieu is resigned to waiting for it. Parks anticipates an engineer’s report at the end of February.  

And so, nearly nine years after starting on the project, the Parks Department is still proceeding backward. But perhaps it will have more success restoring the totem poles than it did getting rid of them.