The Stolen Totems at Tongass Island E. of Mile 600

      In September of 1899 the residents of this Tlingit village in very southern Alaska were returning after a hunting trip just as the big steamer City of Seattle was steaming away. Then when they went ashore they found that one of their prized totems had been crudely sawed off at the base and was missing. They immediately took chase, but the steamer quickly outdistanced them. However, they immediately reported the theft. Turns out that the thieves were prominent Seattle citizens on a "Goodwill Tour," sent north by the Seattle Chamber of Commerce and a local paper. They donated the totem, which was quickly installed in Pioneer Square. The Federal Government quickly indicted the group, creating a furor. The attorney for the thieves stated:

"The village has long since been deserted ... Here the totem will voice the natives' deeds with surer speech than if lying prone on moss and fern on the shore of Tongass Island."

Eventually political pressure prevailed and the charges were dismissed. But the natives got the last laugh. By 1938, the original pole had rotted badly, so the city sent a check to the tribe they had stolen the pole from to carve a replica. The tribe cashed the check, stating that the $5,000 covered the first stolen pole, and that if the city wanted another, it would be another $5,000! The city caved and paid up...

When I was a young fish buyer working the very southern waters of Southeast Alaska with my wife, Mary Lou, we became friends with all the men and women on the boats who delivered their catch to us. One of the woman was a Haida, who was steeped in native tradition, and one day suggested we go to the beach on Tongass Island, to look for gasss trading beads. We took her advice and on hands and knees on that beach in front of what was once a prosperous native village, searched the coarse sand. And after an hour or so, we found the first tiny beads - barely larger than a grain of sand: red, yellow, blue, and green, with holes drilled through their centers. A little later we found four so called “Russian” trading beads together, as if the cord through them had only recently rotted away. These were larger, perhaps five-eighths of an inch in diameter, octagonal and cobalt blue: exquisite. Our Haida friend told us that before leaving on a trading or hunting journey in their long cedar canoes, the natives would cast a necklace into the sea in front of their village as an offering to the gods for a safe and successful journey. At first I thought them foolish for casting such treasures into the sea, but Mary Lou was pregnant that summer with our first child and a few days later as we got underway at nightfall with a full load of fish, and I could feel our bow lift into the seas and hear the wind howling in the rigging, I could understand their feelings a little better!

Tongass Island around 1935. The Tlingit village here moved to Saxman, 2 miles south of downtown Ketchikan, as they wanted to be able to have a BIA school and a church in their village.They left the totems, but were outraged when a Seattle group, including the head of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce stole one in 1899 that eventually ended up in Seattle's Pioneer Square .

Bottom of the Pioneer Square totem today. The original pole was replaced in 1940, so it is 72 years old and looking pretty good. However the original colors have replaced with paints with more preservative qualities. Still, for a 72 year old cedar pole in the Northwest's wet climate, it is remarkable shape.