God is Change—Seed to tree, tree to forest; Rain to river, river to sea; Grubs to bees, bees to swarm. From one, many; from many, one; Forever uniting, growing, dissolving—forever Changing. The universe is God’s self-portrait.”— Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower, 1993
In just a few weeks, the Thompson Elk Fountain will be restored to its full, original natural bronze beauty. The two-and-a-half ton statue was removed from its downtown home of more than a century by the city after its base suffered fire damage during Portland’s 2020 uprisings. The statue was put into storage and underwent years of meticulous repair and restoration. The Elk, unlike a slew of other effigies throughout the city and country during the protests, was not actually toppled. However, its removal alongside other statues during The Reckoning™ fueled a citywide conversation about what exactly is worthy—of not just public reverence, but remembrance.
Here’s the truth: The Elk’s removal did nothing to make me feel more like a citizen of the United States. But its presence has generally made me feel more like a Portlander.
The Elk isn’t exactly sacred, or the “soul of the city” as one city commissioner once put it. But there is something uniquely Portland about it. At 34 years old, I still get genuinely excited when I happen upon real-life deer and drop whatever I’m doing to admire them. Our society is partial to throwing up shrines and memorials to humans, but there’s something about the Elk that calls on us to remember the greater unifying forces that make Portland, and moreover the Pacific NW, a special place to call home. The abundance of nature roots us all.
Propelled by a $2.2 million investment from the previous City Council and additional design support from the Portland Parks Foundation and Regional Arts and Cultural Council, the iconic art is scheduled to return home April 12. It will also return with a fresh coat of protective wax, earthquake retrofitting, and new stonework surrounding the fountain. The reconstitution of this statue is sure to be a local flashpoint in the ongoing campaign for Portland’s post-pandemic recovery efforts—an opportunity to say “downtown’s back, baby!” to the masses.
As the imaginary confetti rains down in celebration of reinvigorated foot traffic, increased hotel bookings, and growing economic faith in the city, there’s a deeper story to explore—the reason the statues fell in the first place.
In response to The Reckoning, the city launched an initiative to re-evaluate its 23-piece collection of public monuments. The Portland Monuments Project focused on seven specific statues, to determine what their future in Portland should be—including the Elk. After a public engagement process, it’s been determined that most of these statues are set to return to their original homes over the coming years.
I gotta say: It was fun watching most of them come down though!
While not one of the seven statues under review by the Monuments Project, few things brought me true joy during quarantine more than the toppling of the Thomas Jefferson statue. Slammed down in front of the school that bore his name, then spraypainted with the words “SLAVE OWNER,” the move did something good for my soul. When George Washington, a man who wore enslaved people’s teeth in his mouth, received the same fate, I had to smile a bit. And then there was the news of Harvey Scott up on Mt. Tabor….
Scott was an owner of The Oregonian. He, alongside founding editor Henry Pittock, regularly used its pages to push racist propaganda that would continue in the state’s largest paper for years—even beyond their 20th century deaths. In 2020, Scott’s statue was toppled to be replaced shortly after by an unsanctioned bust of York, a Black man who helped lead the Lewis and Clark expeditions, despite being under the enslavement of William Clark.
York’s bust was then toppled five months later.
I took my children up to the Pittock Mansion a couple weeks ago. I hadn’t been there since I was in fifth grade at King Elementary. When I shared that to the greeter at reception, she replied, “That’s usually when schools bring them in!” As I walked through, I was struck by how much I recalled of the 16,000 square feet after all these years. The grand marble stairs. The endless rooms. The impeccable westside views looking down upon the city. Now a museum, owned by the City of Portland, the preservation of its history is both illuminating and curious. Great detail is curated to craft a story of Pittock as a fortuitous entrepreneur, a stately man. As the founder of the state’s “paper of record,” I couldn’t overlook how little attention was given to the content of his outlet—in 2026 at least.
Inspired by the 2020 uprisings, in 2022 the Oregonian released “Publishing Prejudice,” an in-depth examination and recant of their decades of overtly racist news stories and editorials.
The subhead for one story in the multimedia series read: “The overtly racist words printed by Henry Pittock and Harvey Scott made Oregon a more hostile place for people of color.”
As far as I could tell, there were no references to Publishing Prejudice at Pittock Mansion. In fact, the only mention of “racial justice” I could find was a quick reference to a positive editorial he’d written about the growing Chinese population in Portland. As my 3-year-old danced, spinning in circles, unaware and not particularly impressed with her surroundings, it occurred to me how this house of myth was at present merely a canvas for something real—her joy.
Remembrance is foundational to the human spirit. From Indigenous petroglyphs to pics uploaded to the ‘Gram—there is something fundamentally human in our desire to leave a mark; to remember and be remembered. In the public square, remembrance is often coupled with deification. Humans are carved into gods who weathered earthly battles, then held up as mirrors to the masses as examples to emulate.
The truth is that myth often drives remembrance. But when we make gods out of people, facts often morph or perish.
The mere practice of calling White supremacy “supremacy” makes me itch for this very reason. For in America, the issue is less White “supremacy” and more White centricity. It is White centricity that falsely believes—as Aristotle believed—that Earth was the center of the universe. A world where before there was ever a Big Bang, there was a White man.
This February, Oregon turned 167 years old. The honorary “Mayor of NE Portland” Paul Knauls turned 95 in January. Not long after the owners of the recently shuttered Skanner newspaper had changed the name of Union Avenue to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in the ’90s, Mr. Knauls led fundraising efforts to bring a statue of King himself to the front of the Oregon Convention Center. His effort succeeded—making it the first MLK Boulevard in the country to have an MLK statue. “The Dream” as it’s named, is meant to inspire a sense of unified value—the kind where George Floyd’s name is never strung into the public square, tethered by four centuries of precedent.
The Elk turns 126 years old this year, and its return will surely be met with great applause. As it‘s bolted back onto its pedestal, more shiny and secure than ever, it will once again be lauded as a rallying point for Portlanders. But for many who love our city, we are not so shiny, nor are we more secure. As the Elk is celebrated as a return to all that binds us as Portlanders, let us remember that true unity is forged by symbols, coupled by action.
But above all, the return of the Elk reminds us that, more than any statue of wo/man, we humans are not the center of the universe.
In other news: As part of the Portland Monuments Project, a new permanent bronze bust of York has been commissioned, and its location will be determined sometime this year.
Donovan Scribes is an award-winning writer, communications consultant, speaker and producer. A former vice president of the Portland NAACP, he writes on culture, place, and politics. Follow him on Instagram @donovanscribes. Want to keep the conversation going? Email him at donovanscribes@gmail.com.
