Nathan Jackson Whale Hatchover
The Puget Sound is the natural habitat of gray whales, minke whales, and orca—or killer—whales. This hatchover—or manhole cover—design at your feet (at the northwest corner of S Main St and 1st Ave S) featuring a whale in a Tlingit artistic style is the work of Nathan Jackson, a member of the Sockeye Clan on the Raven side of the Chilkoot-Tlingit tribe in southeastern Alaska. Jackson works primarily in woodcarving, especially totem poles. To create this design, Jackson carved it in wood and then had it cast in iron. There are 32 such hatchovers in the city.[1]
According to at least one Native oral history of Seattle, the valleys between Seattle and Tacoma once sat beneath a shallow arm of the sea until the ocean receded and trapped several whales in a landlocked lake. The whales eventually created subterranean channels to the sea. In doing so, they created the White, Green, Stuck, and Duwamish Rivers.[2]
Whaling is one of the oldest global industries in the Pacific Northwest and American Indians in the region have hunted whales for thousands of years. Commercial whaling in the Seattle area persisted until the end of the Second World War when the American Pacific Whaling Company finally closed its doors in Bellevue.[3]
Artist-designed hatchovers in Seattle are the product of a proposal by former Seattle Arts Commission Jacquetta Blanchett, who was inspired by a visit to Florence Italy in the 1950s.[4]
[1] [1] “Seattle,” WhaleWatching.com, accessed August 14, 2016, http://www.whalewatching.com/seattle; “Hatchover Art in Seattle,” Seattle.gov, accessed August 14, 2016 http://www.seattle.gov/light/neighborhoods/nh4_art.htm; “NEA National Heritage Fellowships: Nathan Jackson,” National Endowment for the Arts accessed August 14, 2016, https://www.arts.gov/honors/heritage/fellows/nathan-jackson?id=1995_07&type=bio.
[2] Matthew Klingle, Emerald City: An Environmental History of Seattle(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 18-19.
[3] Joshua L. Reid, The Sea Is My Country: The Maritime World of the Makahs, an Indigenous Borderlands People (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015); David Williams, Too High and Too Steep: Reshaping Seattle’s Topography (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2015), 129-31.
[4] “Hatchover Art in Seattle.”
Credits and Sources:
Description by Madison Heslop on behalf of the American Society for Environmental History.
“Hatchover Art in Seattle.” Seattle.gov. Accessed August 14, 2016. http://www.seattle.gov/light/neighborhoods/nh4_art.htm.
Klingle, Matthew. Emerald City: An Environmental History of Seattle.New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.
“NEA National Heritage Fellowships: Nathan Jackson.” National Endowment for the Arts. Accessed August 14, 2016. https://www.arts.gov/honors/heritage/fellows/nathan-jackson?id=1995_07&type=bio.
“Seattle.” WhaleWatching.com. Accessed August 14, 2016, http://www.whalewatching.com/seattle.
Reid, Joshua L. The Sea Is My Country: The Maritime World of the Makahs, an Indigenous Borderlands People. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015.
Williams, David B. Too High and Too Steep: Reshaping Seattle’s Topography. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2015.
