If you were going to choose a symbol for a pacific northwest American city, what would it be and where would you put it? How about a statue of Chief Seattle, the person after whom the city is named?
There are in fact five native North American tribes that consider parts of Seattle to be in their traditional territory, the Duwamish, the Suquamish, the Snoqualmie, Tulalip and Muckleshoot. Personally I think the Muckleshoot win the award for funkiest name but it was the chief of the Suquamish people who is thus “honoured”.
Apparently there were a few problems associated with this as his tribe didn’t really have a “chief” in the accepted sense of the word and their beliefs about someone’s name continuing after they had passed on usually forbade such a thing. In fact rumour has it that there are only three statues to the man in the whole of the city, though I have only seen two, one of which is only a bust. So how about a totem pole?
One of the first things you notice in Pioneer Square, a mere smoke ring away from the bust of Chief Seattle, is a totem pole. Which is weird as none of the five tribes particularly have a culture of totem carving, something that belonged to the native tribes further north and into Canada.
The totem pole was first placed here, accompanied by cheers, in 1899. It was later damaged by fire, deliberately, and replaced with a copy in 1940. With a certain irony the replacement was carved by direct descendents of the Alaskan tribe that had seen the original one stolen from their village.
Some accounts say that the native village was abandoned and thus the pillage of a pole was justified, others say that it was a negotiated removal. Either way the Tinglit Tribe demanded twenty thousand dollars for the stolen pole before finally accepting five hundred, paid by a Seattle Newspaper. All in all probably not the best symbol to represent the city.
The Space Needle, a thoroughly modern pole that towers above the Seattle Centre and one of the first things you see as you approach Seattle from the ocean, is almost an iconic symbol for the city; omnipresent, worshipped by visitors and locals alike and appearing on the sides of buildings, t-shirts and key-rings. It is ingrained in the subconscious mind but as the design was originally inspired by a German radio mast it lacks a certain “indiginality.”
So, if I had to choose an iconic, indigenous, omnipresent and awe inspiring symbol for the city what would it be? Mount Rainier, or better still Mount Tahoma to give it its aboriginal name.
Japan’s Tokyo has its Mount Fiji, a mythical summit etched in our collective minds and Mount Tahoma is just as good. Only about fifty miles south of the city, the first thing you see as the airplane approaches Tacoma International airport (Tacoma is a linguistic corruption of Tahoma), the first thing you notice as you leave the airport, the first thing you see from the top of the space needle, from the ferries as you approach the city on water.
Ok, some days the clouds or haze completely hide it and for a while you forget that it exists, dominated as you are by the urban environment, but then suddenly the air clears and the shock of its presence is breath taking. Two years ago I was wandering Pike Street Market and my attention was all at street level, the football world cup was nearing a fantastic climax and my mind was elsewhere. I fell into conversation with an American journalist who opinioned that the US would be much more interested in the game if F.i.F.A. removed the offside rule and the teams played with no goalkeepers.
I turned my head away in shock and was stunned by the unexpected view of the mountain towering over the cranes of the container port in the distance, its majesty no way diminished by the plastic glass I was viewing it through. I didn’t get to visit closer on that trip and I promised myself I would this time. I haven’t, even though it is possible as a day trip from the city centre as well as a camping or hotel visit. There is still time.
“With 26 major glaciers, Mount Rainier is the most heavily glaciated peak in the lower 48 states with 35 square miles of permanent snowfields and glaciers. The summit is topped by two volcanic craters, each over 1,000 feet in diameter. Geothermal heat from the volcano keeps areas of both craters free of snow and ice, and has formed an extensive network of glacier caves and ice-filled craters”.
Snow-covered the whole year round. It’s winter up there.
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