Mossback
by Cascade PBS
Latest episode
Mary Vaux Walcott and the Vanishing Glaciers of the Northwest
Mary Vaux Walcott and the Vanishing Glaciers of the Northwest
About this podcast
The official podcast companion to Mossback’s Northwest, a video series about Pacific Northwest history from Cascade PBS. Mossback features stories that were left on the cutting room floor, along with critical analysis from co-host Knute Berger. Hosted by Knute Berger and Stephen Hegg
Episodes
The newest 20 of 61 episodes
- Mary Vaux Walcott and the Vanishing Glaciers of the Northwest · 34 min · Season 7 Episode 9As soon as Mary Vaux arrived in the Canadian Rockies in the 1880s, she began photographing and documenting one glacier in particular, year after year. The Illecillewaet Glacier…
- Remembering Kikisoblu, Seattle’s “Princess Angeline” · 42 min · Season 7 Episode 8Chief Seattle’s daughter, Kikisoblu, dubbed “Princess Angeline” by white settlers, could be considered one of Seattle’s first celebrities. Toward the end of her life, her…
- Seattle’s Most Iconic Foods, Then and Now · 36 min · Season 7 Episode 7What are Seattle’s most iconic foods? There's a history to that! Mossback co-hosts Knute Berger and Stephen Hegg delve into the past and present of the Seattle food scene with…
- How Seattle’s Logging Industry Birthed its Libraries · 36 min · Season 7 Episode 6Today, Seattle is a UNESCO City of Literature – and it’s been a literary city since its founding. In fact, the first local library was created even before the city was officially…
- How Dolls Became Part of WWII Espionage · 35 min · Season 7 Episode 5One of the oddest cases of World War II espionage involved a woman, Velvalee Dickinson, who spied on Northwest shipyards for the Japanese. How did she do it? By writing coded…
- The Fishy Reason the U.S. Bought Alaska · 36 min · Season 7 Episode 4Why did the U.S. buy Alaska from Russia? It wasn’t for gold or fur, it turns out. It was for fish. And it was a politician from the Washington Territory who lobbied the hardest…
- Seattle’s Potlatch Riot of 1913 · 35 min · Season 7 Episode 3Seattle once hosted a summer celebration called The Golden Potlatch. But in July 1913, political tensions mixed with revelry erupted into a riot, resulting in a brief period of…
- The Puzzle of the Pimpled Prairie · 33 min · Season 7 Episode 2Despite two centuries of speculation and science, a strange prairie full of small, evenly spaced hills south of Olympia remains a mystery. Cascade PBS’s resident historian Knute…
- Behind the 11th Season of Mossback’s Northwest · 51 min · Season 7 Episode 1The Mossback’s Northwest video series launched its 11th season last fall, covering topics ranging from the mystery of the Mima Mounds to World War II espionage to Seattle’s…
- A Journey to the Headwaters of the Columbia · 33 min · Season 6 Episode 9The massive Columbia River travels more than 1,200 miles from start to finish. It crosses four mountain ranges, powers 14 hydroelectric dams and irrigates hundreds of thousands…
- The 1800s Influencer Who Made Tacoma Famous · 32 min · Season 6 Episode 8In the second half of the 19th century, a businessman named George Francis Train rose to prominence through his success with global shipping and trade. As his wealth grew, so did…
- The Deadly Mouth of the Columbia · 33 min · Season 6 Episode 7The tumultuous mouth of the Columbia River, near Astoria, Oregon, is beautiful but deadly. Thousands of ships have capsized and wrecked on its shores over the centuries. That’s…
- The Strange Things That Happen to Bodies After Death · 34 min · Season 6 Episode 6The Pacific Northwest has a reputation for the macabre. We’ll never escape the allure of Twin Peaks, for instance, or the terrible crimes of some of the most infamous serial…
- Racism, History and the Great Outdoors · 32 min · Season 6 Episode 5A few seasons ago, the Mossback’s Northwest video series profiled Catherine Montgomery, an early 20th-century wilderness advocate who has been dubbed “the Mother of the Pacific…
- The People of the Columbia River · 35 min · Season 6 Episode 4In 1996, some of the oldest human remains ever found in North America were discovered along the banks of the Columbia River, ultimately illuminating Indigenous presence in the…
- How Horseless Carriages Took Off · 36 min · Season 6 Episode 3At the turn of the 20th century, almost no one had a car in Seattle. There weren’t traffic laws or paved roads, and at first, only the wealthiest people could own these…
- The Forces That Carved the Columbia · 29 min · Season 6 Episode 2The Columbia River has been carved up by more than a dozen dams over the past century. But it’s the colossal floods and lava flows from millions of years ago that truly set it on…
- Behind the 10th Season of 'Mossback's Northwest' · 51 min · Season 6 Episode 1At a live event, Knute Berger, Stephen Hegg and Nick Zentner discussed Mossback’s Northwest and the 10th season's focus on the Columbia River. Mossback’s Northwest is still…
- Meet Seattle's Bird Woman · 32 min · Season 5 Episode 8Adelaide Lowry Pollock was an educator, birder, author and believer in the power of civic participation at the turn of the 20th century. In the early 1900s, pioneering educator…
- The Wood That Won the Wars · 32 min · Season 5 Episode 7Sitka trees were key military materiel in both World Wars. Knute Berger shares how the need for wood and the women who harvested it changed logging. In the early 20th century…
