From public art to company logos, totem poles are all over Seattle. But the tradition of carving totems doesn’t originate with Washington’s local Coast Salish tribes. It comes from indigenous people living well north of here, around British Columbia. The story of how totem poles came to our city begins in the late 1800s, when a group of local, white business leaders took a trip to Alaska.

Got a minute to learn something fascinating and confounding about our history?

» Check out our quick vid on totem poles in Seattle. Then ask: What — or who — do our city’s totem poles stand for?

Want to learn more about totems in Seattle? The Burke Museum’s got you covered. And keep an eye out for our upcoming video about local Coast Salish art.

What goes up… For almost two years, Seattle had the fastest rising home prices in the country. This summer, we started to see signs of a market cool-down. And now? We’re leading the nation in how fast our prices are falling. Before you prospective home buyers get too excited, remember that Seattle’s median home price of $750,000 — while down from a peak of around $830,000 a few months ago — is still pretty darn high, with home prices around our area up 61 percent more than inflation since 2012. Meanwhile, some affordable housing is literally disappearing. In Burien, every family in one apartment complex is getting evicted because its new owner wants to remodel and turn the property around. (The Seattle Times)

My, my, Microsoft. Remember when we were gushing over our Apple iPhones and laughing at Microsoft’s Zune? Well. Microsoft looks like it’s about to beat Apple to become America’s most valuable company by market capitalization. To get a sense of how impressive that is, take a look at the chart in this post comparing growth — or lack thereof — across all the big tech companies. Microsoft “is the tortoise in a technology world obsessed with hares,” says Bloomberg. And who does it have to thank? CEO Satya Nadella. (GeekWire)

The five best tacos in Seattle. There are worse things to do on a work day than taste-test Seattle’s tacos. But swallow your envy, because the top taco spots that writer Jacob Uitti ranked along with chefs Unika Noiel and Tarik Abdullah and musician Eva Walker are much more delicious. 😋 (Seattle Weekly)

What killed the carbon tax? Relatively speaking, we Washingtonians are pretty big fans of the environment. So why did we reject a measure to charge polluters a fee for the gunk they put in our air — twice? University of Washington professors Nives Dolšak and Aseem Prakash crunched some numbers from the election last month along with PhD student Steven M. Karceski. Their big takeaway: Local climate champs should propose a policy that “does not have an explicit tax implication,” like cap and trade. (Crosscut)

READY FOR TOMORROW NIGHT?

We are so pumped to see you at The Evergrey Turns 2 — our second anniversary celebration where we’ll toast to the 206 and share great ways to give back to the amazing, imperfect city we call home.

There’ll be food, drinks, and loads of activities, plus you’ll get to say hey to a whole bunch of the standout locals orgs you told us about for our Evergrey Giving Guide project this fall: Community Lunch On Capitol Hill, Compass, EarthCorps, FareStart, Forterra NW, Foundation Community, GSBA – Greater Seattle Business Association, Impact Hub Seattle, Intentionalist, The Millionair Club Charity, Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, Real Change Homeless Empowerment Project, Seattle Works, Team Read, Tenants Union of Washington, United Way of King County, What’s Next – Washington, World Relief Seattle, and last but certainly not least — the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which made the entire Giving Guide project possible. 🙏

We’ve got hundreds of RSVPs so far and you won’t want to miss this, folks. Drop your name here, and we will see you there.

‘Til then, Seattle. — The Evergrey