I imagine many people wonder how a Tlingit totem pole ended up in Pioneer Square. Long story short, bunch of Seattle business titans sailed up to Alaska in 1899 following the Klondike Stampede to look around, and stole The Chief of All Women pole, carved circa 1790, from Tongass Village. . .

one of few poles dedicated to a woman. The tourists chopped the pole down when no one was looking and sailed back to Seattle where they popped the pole up in Pioneer Square with a big ceremony October 18, 1899. The feds slapped their hands and got them to cough up a $500 fine. But the pole stayed in Seattle. The pole stood in Pioneer Square for nearly forty years before a serial arsonist decided to torch the thing, October 23, 1938. Too damaged to repair, the city shipped the pole back to Alaska and commissioned the carving of a replica by a Tlingit carver named Charles Brown. The replica was shipped to Seattle this time with the tribe’s blessing and raised July 24, 1940. The pole was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1977.

Totem poles are read from top to bottom, with the topmost figure identifying the owner. On the Pioneer Square totem pole that is Raven, who in Tlingit mythology is god-like, omniscient and omnipresent. The other figures, in descending order on the totem pole, are: a woman holding her frog child, the woman’s frog husband, Mink, a Raven child, Whale with a Seal in his mouth, and finally Grandfather of Raven.