"“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m digging a seven-foot hole for the Henry Moses Totem Pole,” the man replied. He stood in the center of a raised flower bed at the Renton Fred Meyer. He wore jeans, T-shirt, white baseball cap and turquoise studs in his ears.

“I’m White Bear,” he said leaning against his shovel. “A couple of years ago I was parking my car here and I looked up at a faded totem pole. So I went researching at the Renton Historical Society.”

White Bear discovered the totem pole was the Henry Moses Honoring Pole. Moses was the last hereditary chief of the Duwamish tribe and the first Native American to graduate from Renton high school, in 1916.

“I wanted to restore the pole — then it was stolen.”

My ears perked up. “Stolen? Who steals totem poles?”"

Get the Story:
CAROLYN OSSORIO: Really, who has the gall to steal a totem pole? (The Renton Reporter 5/5)