♪♪
-Each piece of wood is different...
the sound, the feeling,
the hearing, and the look of it.
I guess it would be like turning a page
at a beginning of a story,
to shape out, each shaving that falls.
There's a page. There's a page.
♪♪
I guess it's proof there what your mind and heart can do.
♪♪
-It came to signify the Northwest coast.
And so if you wanted a memento, that's what you wanted to have.
The business community was very interested.
And when Standley came from Denver, he had seen the pole.
It wasn't terribly far from the shop on the waterfront.
♪♪
-He was a fisherman.
He traveled a lot from Canada to the States.
Of course, there was
no real visible border, I guess, with our bands.
-A number of Nuu-chah-nulth people
lived down on the Duwamish flats.
There was the possibility
that the children could go to school here.
There also were ways that one could make money,
particularly picking hops.
Sam Williams found that the Curiosity Shop was interested
in having somebody carve totem poles.
-My grandfather was one of the first to sell artwork
to the Old Curiosity Shop.
I mean, we have a long history with them.
♪♪
-And he developed his own style,
which is very different than the northern styles.
You can look at the noses, the way brows --
There's certain characteristics,
bulging eyes, a certain way of making claws,
the positioning of the mouth and the shape of it,
very large teeth often that were flared out.
-He put shape on our teeth
because at the time, we were the only ones
that rounded our teeth.
-It appealed to Standley.
Standley had several of his poles in his yard
over in West Seattle,
and he stored them along side of the wall
where the cars would come up to go on the ferries.
Then he began to encourage also making small poles.
-These are good examples of Sam's work.
You see, he would call this easy money.
So, you can see that these are a little bit older,
but this would be a good example of what he would make,
a bucket of these up and sell them for 25 cents.
You can see the Williams style.
It's evolving here.
The frog is a good example, the way they carve their feet.
-Through the poles
that were carved by Sam Williams,
then by his children,
an old tradition was reinvented in a new way,
and that tradition became something in its own right.
-My dad was born in December of 1933,
and about 1936 -- he was 3 --
when he started carving with my grandfather,
at the Duwamish River, where he sat and carved.
It changed in 1950 to 1960,
where my dad took my granddad's work and added to it.
To me, it's like --
Watching him carving, it was like he's cutting butter.
"Schwoo, schwoo, schwoo."
-It was just effortless to see him
put a knife through a piece of wood.
He created a genre of his own,
a style that became unique to him.
♪♪
Raymond was born lucky to be born into a family of artists,
and he knew -- he knew that his children would be okay
and would be able to provide for themselves if they could carve.
So they carved.
-I remember talking to dad,
and he said, "Every single generation
adds a little change to the totem poles."
And he said, "We're definitely, in this generation --
We've added a lot more detail."
I know there's 250 designs.
The stories behind them -- I know very little of them.
The last person that I'm completely aware that has
the histories and the stories of our totem poles is John.
♪♪
-John, like his older brother Sam,
had a special ability to take the craft
and the style of carving just a little step further.
-John and Sam -- they're like Batman and Robin.
They pressured themselves
to keep the art alive,
to keep moving forward.
-To them, it just came --
It was like second nature to them.
They could just sit there and take a piece of wood --
doesn't matter what it looks like --
and it just comes out amazing.
-He started when he was 7 years old.
That was the tradition in their family.
And by the time he was 10 years old,
he was carving totem poles and masks
and things of that sort.
-To see the things he'd created --
I know everybody in the family carves like it,
but to watch him carve
from the beginning to what it would look like --
You know, he was talented.
-And I think the closest person to dad,
because he was always there with dad --
Doesn't matter where he was going,
like, to the States or Canada or where he was going.
John was always sure to be there.
-John T. was very loved by his family
and certainly loved by those of us
that came to be his family.
-John was one of the people
that came in to the club regularly
when we were located at 165 South Washington.
He had so much personality,
and he always had just a wonderful aura about him.
-His smile, his personality, the voice, how he walked.
♪♪
He was the kind that --
He'd give you the last dollar if he had it, you know?
I don't know. It's just...
how little things people take for granted about.
♪♪
-After dad passed away,
then Sam, then Dave, then Nathan,
my brother just fell.
-He would tell about his father dying,
and I remember he'd cry.
He'd start getting really, um...
And then when his brother died,
yeah, there were some -- he would hit some hard times.
-When Sam and -- See, Sam and Dave are buried here in Canada.
And when he left Canada,
he did tell me and a few other people --
he said, "I'm never stepping foot back into Canada."
And he never did.
He never came back. He never returned.
♪♪
-I know that his --
the alcoholism had really hit him hard.
But he just kept being a survivor on the street.
And I would see him when I'd walk downtown.
-We all saw the deterioration.
But, you know, he never lost the smile.
He never lost that friendly chuckle.
He never lost the ability to laugh.
-I haven't seen him since 1989.
And I had reconnected with Rick in 2006 about,
and we talked a lot about John and how to find him.
It wasn't really clear where he was.
-Mr. Williams, you see that symbol right there?
-Yeah. -What does that mean?
-Walk.
-You see that symbol right there?
-Don't walk.
-Next time, look up, and you won't get stopped.
-Okay! -You understand that?
-Yes! -If I see you do that again...
-Don't bark at me! -Listen to me.
♪♪
-Free to go, Mr. Williams.
♪♪
Thus ends my contact with Mr. Williams,
one of our regular mental transient Native Americans.
I'll be turning the video camera off now.
♪♪
-I know a big part of John struggle's was,
there's very few of us left in Seattle.
And he was missing a lot of us.
My mother actually sent my brother Eric to Seattle.
She said, "Go get John. He needs us now."
♪♪
-My brother Rick and I found him.
We were sitting in the market and seen him
and said, "Hey, bro." He didn't hear --
He didn't acknowledge me until I got about this close to him.
Street life really hurt him.
He sounded like a child.
He was standing there looking at us, Rick and I.
He goes, "Man, I haven't seen you two sit together
in over 15 years, man."
♪♪
He was so happy to see both of us.
♪♪
[ Sea gull squawking ]
♪♪
-Ah, that must have been August 30th.
Eric and John and I were at Victor Steinbrueck Park.
We call it Native Park, but...
nice day out.
He's telling me he's losing his sight.
You know, he's saying he's embarrassed by it
and could barely hear you.
I had to get this close to him
and had him take my hand in sign language
to say, "I'll teach you how to carve the way we saw Grandpa."
To see that smile of his
and saying he wanted to continue,
'cause if grandpa can carve blind, he can.
"Okay, I'll go get my stuff."
-I made a dollar out of my donation hat.
I said, "Hey, man, I got a buck, man,"
handed him a dollar.
He said, "Hey, thanks for looking out, brother."
-Walks up the street, looks back.
"Two hours, I'll be back," and...
♪♪
Oh, at that day and moment...
...I couldn't get it, I couldn't see it.
He's just walking across the street.
He was coming back to us.
4.7 seconds he had.
♪♪
-Hey! Hey! Hey!
Put the knife down!
[ Gunshots ]
♪♪
[ Police radio beeps ]
-Unit 33, shots fires, Boren and Howell.
Subject wouldn't drop knife.
♪♪
-Shot fired, Boren and Howell.
Unit 33.
-So, I decided I'd cross the street behind the police car,
and right as I stepped up on the curb
is when the gun started going off.
And about two car lengths into the parking lot,
I stopped and turned, and John was staring right at me.
And I saw the blood on his shirt.
♪♪
-Three or four minutes after John was shot,
you know, it spread like wildfire.
Somebody came from Boren and Howell
and told me they just murdered my brother and...
I set my carving down and...
♪♪
Then after that, everything went upside down.
♪♪
-I've been out and about during the day.
I came in about 4:00.
Sat down, turned the TV on.
It said, "Breaking news."
The horror of it.
And all I could do was sit there glued to my chair.
I could not move.
-I was at my son's soccer practice,
carving a totem pole in a park,
and somebody came up to me and said,
"You better not do that in Seattle.
You could get shot for it."
And I said, "Excuse me?"
-I was stunned, stunned and dumbfounded,
and I just could not believe.
-Well, I found out the day after, and I was just...
devastated.
I mean, I was -- I was in such shock, like,
I don't remember phoning him.
I don't remember phoning my my son
and telling him about it.
And...
-Yesterday, shortly after 4:00 p.m.,
SPD patrol officer Ian Birk
confronted a person armed with a knife
at the corner of Boren Avenue and Howell,
resulting in the use of deadly force.
[ Siren wailing ]
-You okay, bud?
-Yeah, I'm okay.
-I knew something was really wrong.
I didn't know, you know,
why somebody was shooting a gun off in broad daylight,
and I just wanted to go.
But it was pounding in my head I needed to go back,
and so about a block and a half away,
I finally turned around and came back.
And at that point, there was a police officer
at the other end of the block
taping off the street.
And I stopped and talked to her and told her.
-A lot of information that was provided
yesterday and throughout the day --
it just keeps ever-changing as we talk to witnesses,
as we talk to officers who were there.
-He didn't sit in the police car to talk to him, man.
He was in no shape for talking.
It would take me 25 minutes to walk.
It would take him 50 minutes to walk, 60 minutes to walk.
♪♪
-Didn't introduce himself.
Just yelled at him, "Hey."
-Hey! Hey! Hey!
Put the knife down!
-It became pretty apparent that day
and particularly in the next few days to come
that things were not quite adding up.
-I have to tell you at this point
that I have a lot more questions than answers.
♪♪
I mean, I could go on in a two-day span
of, minute by minute, what I saw, and...
[ Exhales sharply ]
-Oh, it gathered momentum,
not only in Native country, but in all areas.
-Everyone at that point was reacting to this tragedy.
-Am I in danger? I mean, like, lookit --
I'm an artist as well as him.
I did sit alongside with.
I do carving.
I'm nervous about going back there again.
-This is just kind of the tipping point
after there have been so many other incidences
that were similar.
-Oh, there was incredible anger.
I mean, the anger the first couple months was evident.
You could touch it.
-It affected a lot of people, you know.
There's a police officer
that is supposed to be sworn to protect us
that, you know, really gunned somebody down in the street
that was making no threat to him whatsoever --
or anybody else, for that matter.
-For me, it was as if...
When the gun went off,
there was something inside of me that just
almost collapsed, like there was...
♪♪
It was almost as if I died right along with him.
-There was a lot of anger
and a lot of protests on the streets.
And Rick was calling for calm, a calm response
that would honor his brother.
-Okay.
-Listening to people
angry, yelling at me.
-Homeless rights advocates, Indian rights advocates,
the anti-police-brutality folks.
Whatever he did trying to maintain the peace,
he got grief for it and felt that pressure.
-I hear people saying that I should say something, and...
my heart won't.
[ Breathes deeply ]
♪♪
-Ian Burke had been two years on the force --
or two years on the street.
He had completed his training.
And he thought that it was weird
that a Native American
would be walking down the street with a knife
and a piece of wood.
It shocked me that it was not ingrained in this police officer
that Native Americans have been carving in Seattle
since before it was Seattle
and that totem poles, and in particular this family,
are part of the fabric of this city.
And I was shocked and angry that that he thought this was weird.
-Even I carved in Seattle
when I'm walking down the street, right?
I don't take a moment to just relax.
To me, it's always carving, right?
To me, that's relaxing.
I mean, that is the one thing my dad always said --
"If you're gonna fight, you know, never use this.
"This is -- These are, you know, your livelihood, right?
"Your knives, right? Your wood.
That's your livelihood. Don't ever use that."
-The Williams boys were magnificent carvers,
but they were also very used to carving in public.
I would see them walking down the street carving.
And I once asked them,
"Aren't you worried the police will say something
or do something with your knives open like that in public?"
And John said to me -- I remember it very clearly.
He says, "All the police know who we are."
-I knew John T. from when I worked patrol
as a young officer in the '80s.
And that's the other thing,
is that a lot of officers knew who he was.
And I think most officers, particularly senior officers,
knew that, you know, there were times
that, you know, he could be problematic,
but for the most part,
he just did his thing.
♪♪
-So, the inquest was a long process
involving the very difficult testimony of eyewitnesses
and others who were involved.
And the jury was not really instructed.
There were questions that are --
that the family wanted to ask that weren't asked.
There were some legal standards that we wanted to have applied,
but there were no legal standards
provided to the inquest jury.
So, they were given some questions to answer.
But what the validity of those would be
and how they were judging them
and what legal standards they were applying --
they got no direction on that.
-King County has really strange and unique inquest rules
that are different from other jurisdictions in the state.
And in the 40-year history of this inquest process,
there had never been a finding
that the police had done anything wrong
in a shooting or in a death.
And so the cards were stacked against the family
getting any sort of answer or justification
or feeling that they were being heard
and that their loss was being acknowledged.
♪♪
So, when the jury reached a decision
that was sort of half and half,
we saw that as a victory because they were acknowledging
that there were questions about what Ian Birk did
and there were questions
about whether he really reasonably believed
that he was in fear.
And we were, of course, skeptical that he was.
-So, Ted, only four jurors said that they believed
that Williams posed an imminent threat
of serious physical harm at the time he fired his weapon,
only 50% of the jurors.
That is hardly a definitive finding exonerating the officer.
-Well, what that goes to show -- four didn't know.
And, of course, what we have is a situation
where they're being asked to look at this in retrospect
with all of the information that's available now
that was not available at the time.
And I think the jurors very clearly
were taking into account the fact that Mr. Williams
was highly intoxicated that day.
-My brother was deaf in his left ear,
could barely hear,
could barely see.
When did he have the time to react?
-Prosecutors have to decide now
whether to charge Ian Birk with a crime.
What do you say?
-I have no idea if they have any interest
in that whatsoever.
I think under state law it makes it very clear
that they have to overcome a pretty serious burden,
basically show malice on his part.
♪♪
-Today, the county prosecutor, Dan Satterberg,
decided not to bring criminal charges against Ian Birk
for the shooting of Mr. Williams.
I understand the frustration and anger that the public feels.
They rightly want to know,
if Ian Birk is not held accountable for his actions,
can any officer be held accountable?
♪♪
The Firearms Review Board has reconvened
and, based upon extensive review
of the evidence and witness testimony,
they have concluded that the shooting was not justified.
-In fact, what we have unanimously concluded
is that John T. Williams did not manifest,
did not complete,
the predicates for the use of deadly force
by putting himself in a position to imminently cause death
or serious bodily injury to Officer Birk.
♪♪
-From the family's perspective, at some level,
it was like he got away with murder.
And so, again, Rick and the family
were in the position of,
"Well, what do we do about this now?" Right?
"How do we handle a system
that doesn't hold someone accountable this way?"
We understand there are legal theories,
there's process and all that,
but at some level, it felt very, um, uh...
empty.
♪♪
-I don't remember him the way he was as a kid till now.
I don't want that image in my head
of his last moments anymore.
-There had been a lot of stories about his brother in the press
that were really hard.
-You know, you'll see
some of the outrageous things that my brother did,
and all they said was,
"The last week of his life."
-Rick was hurting in a bad way,
having to relive the shooting of John over and over and over.
I knew that the best thing for him
would be to get back to work,
to put a knife in his hands and --
Just like his dad would say, "Get to work, boy."
-The idea was propagated that,
"We're gonna carve a totem pole for John."
-I loved that idea. I said, "Ahh."
My heart got filled full.
-I was really happy. I was really --
Like, I was happy there's something gonna be there
for John because,
regardless of, you know, what happened, like --
And I don't want it to be, like,
sort of a memory of, like, the shooting.
I want it to be a good memory of John, right?
'Cause that was John. Like, he was a carver.
That's what he'd done all his life.
-Dan Martin had arranged with Kellen Manke at Manke Lumber
to donate the tree.
So we drove down to Shelton
and met with some members of the Squaxin Island Tribe.
That was their territory.
-I'm standing in the forest
picking the log with Danny and I.
It's like the tree called us and...
-And it was a big, beautiful cedar.
And we we prayed around it.
And then the loggers went to work and took the tree down.
-[ Chanting in native language ]
[ Rhythmic drumbeats ]
-The logs were loaded on the truck
and the truck was driven up to Seattle
and we just kind of caravanned our way all the way up there.
-It was pretty amazing seeing that huge piece of cedar
coming into the Seattle center.
-Set it down,
and to see everybody blessing the tree at that moment and...
[ Chanting and drumbeats continue ]
Pulling the bark back, putting J.T. on it, and...
That's about when the images started,
showing me how big the eagle will be,
the master carver and the raven, the look -- I saw it.
As the bark was coming off, the more I took off,
the more I could see it come to life.
[ Chanting and drumbeats continue ]
It'll mean something.
And that's what we were after.
[ Heavy drumbeats ]
♪♪
[ Pounding on wood ]
♪♪
We started at March 15th at the Seattle Center.
The key people that were here in the beginning at carving --
Dennis Underwood, Danny Martin, Paul Williams.
You know, we asked other carvers to come by
'cause they knew my brother.
-We got this far with what little tools we have.
Patience, a good sense of humor, a good crew.
Biggest thing we ever did.
-I think, as a totem pole carver,
a model totem pole carver,
I think you dream
of doing the real thing, the real deal,
like playing a video game and wanting to really race a car.
It's different.
So you have to learn.
-We're looking at
where everybody got tired at the end of the day.
After 10 hours, we got tired and were like, "Whoa."
So we got to go over it again
and make sure it's even before we get into this here,
the detail of the animals, right?
-Well, it's a huge commitment to stay at the pole and carve.
You know, there was a core of people down there
that carved all the time.
-Sometimes it was 10, 12 hours,
14 hours a day I'm down there carving on it.
-You want to do that up to here
and then start taking this part out here
to get the shape of that whale...
-Ooh, good. -...the way my granddad did it.
-Okay.
-Doing this for your brother, man.
That's a lot of love. -Of course.
Brothers forever.
I was always thinking about what they did to my brother,
and my thoughts just started staying with this here
'cause I found it healing me
instead of having all that anger in me.
And, you know, by the end of the day, I said,
"Well, I did a great job today in what I was after,
"and it's all coming to the way I'd like to see it
in the tradition of my dad and granddad."
-[ Chanting in native language ]
-Let's set the little one that way as far as we can,
and let's just see what we got. -Okay.
And end of the month, we moved to Pier 57.
I'm home again.
This is my other carving spot.
I've been in this park like 20 years.
I used to sit on the steps.
And I sat up there with my dad and brothers,
and I sat in that -- where those benches are there.
-That's alright.
-That's when I found out how heavy the log was.
-Originally, the log that the pole was carved out of
weighed 12,500 pounds
when it was hoisted onto the truck.
-From 12,5000, it went down to...
-Boom!
-...4,5000 pounds.
-There you go. -Okay. That'll work.
-Alright. -Taking down to land it.
-When they set it down,
that literally scrambled my marbles,
how much weight we took off while pounding and shaping.
I feel it, after 12 hours a day since March 15th till now.
Sore. [ Chuckles ]
-[ Chanting in native language ]
[ Chanting continues ]
-It's not over yet.
Got a long journey ahead of me.
[ Rattling ]
Okay, which one of you guys were doing the rain dance?
-Not me. It was him. -[ Laughs ]
♪♪
-When they first moved it down there,
I was worried about leaving the attention
that we had generated at the Seattle Center
and trying to redirect down to the waterfront.
But the foot traffic and the crowds who showed up --
because, you know, the Seattle waterfront
during the spring and summer is a beautiful place to be --
was amazing.
♪♪
And I don't think we could have been in a better place
than we were down on the waterfront.
-It's really been a vehicle for for positive interaction
with human beings of all flavors.
[ Laughter ] And Rick is wonderful
in bringing everybody to the table like that.
-Rick was being the sort of P.T. Barnum of the pole project,
and he was engaging the public and telling John's story
and telling his family's story and letting people carve
and doing little mini classes.
-You put a log in front of me,
I show you what my people are about.
The students I have here --
and to see such young people interested in learning
something about our heritage of who we are as carvers,
you see what we're doing here --
I feel my grandparents. my dad, my late brothers,
and it gives me the strength to keep going forward.
-[ Chanting in native language ]
-Think of all the different ways that Rick could have reacted
or the community could have reacted.
You know, who knows what would have been burned or destroyed.
But instead, this community
and the native community in particular,
but also the wider community,
came together in a way that they embraced healing.
-Good to meet you. -Good to meet you.
-It was very helpful for me also.
I was there when they brought the log in
and actually had my son with me.
He went up there with me quite a few times.
He actually showed me a little bit on how to carve
and just spending time with him.
-To see so many people come tell me
what happened to their child...
-There was four of them, four of them that were killed.
-If you asked --
If you have to be sleeping east to west
and asked the older ones, "Show me,"
the question was asked,
"What kind of warrior can you be?
"You gonna be the fighter, the one that goes out and hurt,
"or be that warrior that's inside
"that'll give you all the strength you need
"to do even what we did here?
If you can't forgive them, how are you gonna forgive yourself?"
-Rick was constantly repeating to me, "Stay strong."
And he told me that.
Every single time I saw him, quite a few times,
he kept telling me that -- "Just stay strong. Stay strong."
-[Speaking indistinctly] Okay?
Just be strong. Don't let go.
Just have the great memories, you know?
Keep that alive, and they'll be at peace, okay?
-Mm-hmm. Thank you.
-You bet.
I really don't want to see anybody else go through this.
-[ Chanting in native language ]
[ Chanting continues ]
[ Rhythmic drumbeats ]
[ Chanting and drumbeats continue ]
-There are, I think, folks in the community
that would have preferred Rick to be more radical,
to have been more outraged, to have taken a different stand.
What he did was to try to build bridges with the department,
to try to build understanding.
-Peace. -[ Chuckles ]
-Right?
-Rick was a central figure of peace
during this entire time.
And for me, I was absolutely amazed by that
because I knew how much he was hurting.
-After a while, you quit hearing anger and hate.
You started to see the people really admiring and thanking us
for taking such a terrible thing
and giving something beautiful and positive back,
you know, that could have went the other way.
But in my heart, we did the right thing by staying calm.
♪♪
He walked by.
I told Dennis, "That guy's gonna join us."
Next day, Huey shows up.
-I didn't know Rick was.
I didn't actually know anything behind it,
other than what was in the paper.
And Rick asked me if I would like to volunteer.
And I said, "Well, what better project?
"It's changed something.
"It's something that needed to be done.
He's doing a super thing for his brother."
And I like working with wood.
And I enjoy seeing something come together.
See every little grain go where it's supposed to.
[ Speaking indistinctly ]
♪♪
-Being a part of that totem pole,
he sat there with a piece of sandpaper in his hand
and sanded that whole totem pole,
all 34 feet of it.
And we'd carve on it,
and he'd come back and sand it again.
Hugh most accurately represented the people
that always found a place within the Williams family
that gave their lives meaning and comfort and joy and purpose.
♪♪
-I loved the family unity that was there.
♪♪
-Part of the message of the project
and the people who gravitated toward it was of hope.
-Want to play it?
-And the idea that,
even if you were down on your luck
and hadn't carved in 20 years,
you could still do it and you would be welcomed.
You could come and just be there and be part of this community
of carvers and weavers and share your thoughts,
if you knew John or if you didn't know John.
You had a home there.
-[ Chanting native language ]
[ Rhythmic drumbeats ]
[ Chanting and drumbeats continue ]
-When it started getting cold,
Victoria Schoenburg of the Seattle Parks said,
"You know, you guys want to wrap it up?"
And Rick said, "No. I'm gonna stay here.
I'm gonna stay here till we raise it."
even though he might have only gotten one or two people
stopping by on a rainy day,
he was still down there.
-Ah, we saw a lot of rain and snow.
You know, the thing with mine is,
I want you to see and feel the heartbeat
that we all put into it.
all the emotions.
I was constantly burning sage
to keep the energy pure
because when it stands, that it'll be like a magnet.
You got something bothering you? Go sit with it.
Bring a book and sit down and read.
Be part of it, you know, hoping it'll help heal.
Because that's the biggest thing I wanted out of it,
is that the people will feel what we all put into it.
-We a 3,000-mile limited warranty to every used car...
-The last week running around,
looking at what they need to touch up,
a straight line here or a dot.
By then, I was physically drained.
My son Thunderheart took over.
That was the first time in my life I couldn't
cut straight line,
I guess 'cause the days just went by so fast
and, you know, for five months, stressing on it, waiting for it.
And when the day came,
that all we had to do, is sign it.
We're almost there.
Ditidaht, my tribe,
dated February 26, 2012,
and then a peace sign on it.
-I arrived here,
and Rick was telling me what needed to be painted.
I'm like [gasps] "Okay."
So I went and grabbed Nancy.
-You guys need help painting?
-And she goes, "Okay, I'm on it."
-She looks like she knows what she's doing.
-Shut up. [ Laughter ]
-I'm hoping for you on this.
Really proud for you. -I can feel my brother, too.
-Really proud for you. -Thank you. Appreciate it.
-We had we had all discussed as a board and a community
to carry it traditionally up to Seattle Center.
It's like a mile and a half
to carry this pole that weighed --
by this point, we were estimating
weighed about 3,500 pounds.
-I don't know. I don't know.
Everybody's... -Oh, everybody's got
a different idea. -Yeah.
-Everybody's got a different idea.
We've heard three of them already.
So, we're gonna try plan A,
and if that doesn't work, we'll do plan B.
-And if that one doesn't work, we'll do something else.
-It's gonna get there. -It's gonna get there today.
-[ Laughs ] -It's gonna get there.
-And I said, "Okay, just humor me.
"Can we put a sign-up sheet somewhere
to make sure that we have enough people?"
And they all just laughed at me
and said, "We're gonna have enough people."
-It's good to see you.
-Oh, we had no idea.
That half hour before we were scheduled to carry it,
there might have been 50 people down there.
We were not gonna make it.
And in 20 minutes,
the waterfront was covered with people.
-[ Chanting in native language ]
[ Rhythmic clapping ]
-It's just one of these things in the Native community.
Everybody has this faith, you know?
We plan in a general way, and then we always trust
that the details will work themselves out.
And they always do. They just always do.
-[ Speaking native language ]
[ Rhythmic drumbeats ]
-[ Chanting in native language ]
[ Chanting and drumbeats continue ]
-It's all about carrying the energy and carrying the spirit
and changing the way things are.
-We we're lucky enough to where
a dear friend and brother of mine, Saaduuts Peele,
really walked us through what was gonna happen that day.
-You guys want to carry it even together,
and it looks like a very good look.
I was eating breakfast in the morning
'cause I didn't think they really needed me.
And they called me and said, "Where are you?
We want you down here."
So I rushed down there.
And it ended up in a miracle, you know, and being there --
And I was honored, highly honored.
One, two, three.
Okay, straight forward!
-[ Chanting in native language ]
-And it came up off the ground for the first time,
and people were just cheering and drumming.
And as the totem pole started walking slow...
-Hey, Rick, totem pole's on the road, buddy.
-[ Laughs ] Finally!
-Yeah, brother.
-...to see it move up Western...
-Whoo!
Look at those faces in the front.
-...how fast it was.
I quit counting after 90 people there.
-It was hard work. It was --
It was tricky. It wasn't --
Obviously it's not something you could rehearse.
-[ Chanting in native language ]
-They're moving faster than I thought they would.
[ Rhythmic drumbeats ]
-[ Chanting in native language ]
[ Crowd cheering ]
[ Chanting and drumbeats continue ]
-But it took 120 of us carrying that pole
and guiding it through the streets of Seattle
and another 100 or so people walking alongside
chanting and drumming and singing with us.
[ Chanting and drumbeats continue ]
-It was a healing experience for us.
You know, we had a lot of officers out that day
who were part of the traffic control,
the motorcycle escorts, all those type of things that,
you know, in their comments to me that day and afterwards
that they were really proud
to have been down there for that.
It really, you know, boosted my confidence in the department of,
you know, where our officers are with their hearts
and recognizing, you know, the harm that had been done.
-Whoo! -Yeah!
-[ Shouting in native language ]
It's cricking and cracking while they're carrying it.
[ Drill whirring ]
-It wasn't without its bumps in the road, but it --
I don't know. It was a beautiful thing.
I'm really glad that we decided
not to just use a machine
to bring it up there and pick it up with a crane.
-You guys ready. -Yeah.
-One... -Let's do this!
-...two, three!
Men with the blocks!
[ Rhythmic drumbeats ] [ Crowd cheering ]
-To see the fast-paced walking --
I had to get over to the side
'cause they were really booking it.
-As far as I know, everybody who was gonna be there
was walking with the pole.
And when we out came up over the hill
and there was standing room only
in that whole section of the center,
it was pretty amazing.
-[ Chanting in native language ]
[ Rhythmic drumbeats ]
[ Chanting and drumbeats continue ]
-They get the totem to the center and set down and...
-Pause! -Pause!
-I got in here! I got to get in!
-When the pole arrived, it was...
I -- It was an emotional experience.
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
-The unity of the people were there,
that everybody...
[ Cheers and applause ]
-When it arrived, I just -- I had goose bumps.
Andrea came hurrying over to the tent
and gave me this huge hug, and we were both in tears
because it was such an emotional thing.
-[ Sobbing ]
-It was, like...
an amazing amount of energy
was released on that day for all of us.
-Everyone out.
-It really struck home to me what a community effort
it really was, that we all played a part in it,
every one of us.
-We did this. We did this.
The community did this,
not I or I, this company, or I.
[ Indistinct shouting ]
That we all put our hearts and mind into this project
to get it done. -Coming up!
Pull!
[ Indistinct shouting ]
-It was a day of really deep feeling and emotion
and sense of connection to the community that made that happen.
[ Indistinct conversations ]
-[ Chanting in native language ]
-Listen up!
The pole is ready to stand!
♪♪
[ Indistinct conversations ]
♪♪
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
-From my past, as a childhood,
seeing, you know, my granddad's totem's going up,
and all I saw was the history of saying the same thing
and the Williams family standing and...
Seeing the different tribes come together here
to be part of this and...
The only thing I remember in that moment
is giving a rebel yell, and I saw my stick in the air.
Whoo!
[ Cheers and applause ]
And I guess that's another time I looked up.
"What do you think, kid?"
♪♪
[ Cheers and applause ] -Hey!
Ow-whoo!
-To see it going up, I was like, "Wow, Rick, you did it."
♪♪
-The people listened to a thought.
That was about the most powerful energy I felt.
♪♪
This is going to speak louder than I ever will.
♪♪
-[ Chanting in native language ]
[ Rhythmic drumbeats ]
[ Chanting and drumbeats continue ]
[ Chanting and drumbeats stop ]
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Very good. Very good.
♪♪