Mossback

Latest Episodes:

The Case of the Pickled Orca Apr 14, 2023

Show notes

Long before an industry was built around capturing orcas, a tragic encounter between a wayward whale and humanity foretold decades of exploitation.

There are few animals that capture the imagination of human beings the way that orcas have. For decades people have paid money to see them, scientists have studied them intently and, in the Seattle area, concerned news consumers have tracked their every move.

At the start of the 1930s, though, there wasn’t yet a market for whale watching. Enter Ethelbert, a young 11-foot-long female orca who appeared in a place she was not expected: The Columbia River, 100 miles upstream from the Pacific Ocean near Portland, Oregon.

In a recent episode of the Mossback’s Northwest video series, Knute Berger tells the story of Ethelbert, from the carnival-like atmosphere that grew up around her unlikely appearance to her tragic end, pickled in a steel tank on the side of a Washington mountain.

But there is more to the story. For this episode of the Mossback podcast, Berger joins co-host Stephen Hegg to discuss Ethelbert’s brief fame and how her fate foreshadowed the curiosity and industrial-level exploitation that humanity would inflict on her species.

Before listening, we suggest you watch the Mossback's Northwest episode about Ethelbert here.

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Credits

Hosts: Stephen Hegg, Knute Berger

Producer: Seth Halleran

Executive producer: Mark Baumgarten

The New Deal and the Northwest Apr 07, 2023

Show notes

From cheap power to rugged hiking trails, Franklin D. Roosevelt's government transformed the region.

When President Roosevelt launched the New Deal in 1933, he set off a decade-long mobilization that would help move America out of the Great Depression.

It was a massive program that not only provided jobs, but also modernized infrastructure throughout the country. In the Pacific Northwest, where the resource economy was hit hard by the Depression, it reshaped society and even remade the land.

Crosscut's resident historian Knute Berger told the tale of the New Deal and its impact on the Pacific Northwest in a recent episode of the Mossback's Northwest video series, but the New Deal is bigger than any single video could contain.

For this episode of the Mossback podcast, Berger joins former Mossback's Northwest producer, and new Mossback co-host, Stephen Hegg about the ways that the program transformed the Northwest and how the region's most massive project helped set the course for the next century.

Before listening, we suggest you watch the Mossback's Northwest episode about the New Deal here.

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Credits

Hosts: Stephen Hegg, Knute Berger

Producer: Seth Halleran

Executive producer: Mark Baumgarten

Frank Waldron and the Jackson Street Jazz Scene Nov 18, 2022

Show notes

Before there was Ernestine Anderson, Ray Charles and Quincy Jones, there was Frank Waldron.

The unfortunate irony of Seattle’s storied jazz scene of the early 20th century is that there are many stories but not much jazz to account for it. While recording technology existed at the time, it wasn’t being used to capture much of the music being created in those early years of the Jackson Street music scene.

The music has instead spread its influence through compositions and the living tradition of musicians passing the music down through generations. On both counts, Frank Waldron was an original. As a composer, performer and teacher, Waldron helped shape music in the city and across the country for decades.

Crosscut’s resident historian Knute Berger told the tale of Waldron and the Jackson Street music scene in a recent episode of his Mossback’s Northwest video series, but there is more to the story.

For this episode of the Mossback podcast, Berger and co-host Sara Bernard explore Waldron’s music and discuss the origins of a scene that broke both the rules and racial barriers and gave rise to stars including Ernestine Anderson, Ray Charles and Quincy Jones.

Before listening, we suggest you watch the Mossback's Northwest episode about Jackson Street jazz scene here.

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Credits

Hosts: Sara Bernard, Knute Berger

Producer: Jonah Cohen

Executive producer: Mark Baumgarten

Emily Carr’s Mysterious and Majestic Forests Nov 11, 2022

Show notes

The Canadian artist created landscapes unlike her contemporaries’, intuiting the web of life beneath the canopy and putting it on canvas.

As a painter in early 20th-century British Columbia, Emily Carr approached her subject matter through a colonial lens and expressed what she saw with a modernist style developed in the studios of London and Paris. She earned renown for her early depictions of Indigenous cultures, work that would later be criticized as appropriative.

It was later in her career, though, that she focused more intently on the forests themselves, intuiting a web of life beneath the canopy that would eventually be proven by science. Her paintings from this era are unlike those of her contemporaries, capturing the mystery and majesty of these natural landscapes in vivid form.

Crosscut’s resident historian Knute Berger explored this part of Carr's career in a recent episode of his Mossback’s Northwest video series, but there is more to the story.

For this episode of the Mossback podcast, Berger and co-host Sara Bernard discuss how Carr's living landscapes came to be and how the power of the Pacific Northwest's forests have long inspired powerful artwork, personal reverie and even a kind of evangelism.

Before listening, we suggest you watch the Mossback's Northwest episode about Emily Carr here.

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Credits

Hosts: Sara Bernard, Knute Berger

Producer: Jonah Cohen

Executive producer: Mark Baumgarten

Chief Joseph’s Seattle Sojourn Nov 04, 2022

Show notes

He was invited to the city to talk about his storied past, but the Nez Perce chief had his eye on the future of his people.

When Chief Joseph arrived in Seattle in 1903, he had a message to deliver and a public interested in hearing it. He had become a kind of celebrity, though the nature of his renown was complicated.

A leader of the Wallowa band of the Nez Perce Tribe, Joseph had joined his people as they were pushed out of their ancestral home in northeast Oregon by the U.S. Army. And he had put up a storied fight against those forces as they attempted to, and eventually did, stop the tribe’s retreat to Canada.

Crosscut’s resident historian Knute Berger told the tale of Joseph’s visit to Seattle in a recent episode of his Mossback’s Northwest video series, but there is more to the story.

For this episode of the Mossback podcast, Berger and co-host Sara Bernard discuss the history of harassment, attempted erasure and resistance that defined Joseph’s life, as well as the forces that brought him to Seattle and how the message he came to deliver still resonates today.

Before listening, we suggest you watch the Mossback's Northwest episode about Chief Joseph here.

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Credits

Hosts: Sara Bernard, Knute Berger

Producer: Jonah Cohen

Executive producer: Mark Baumgarten

The Pig War That Almost Was Oct 28, 2022

Show notes

A border conflict between the U.S. and Britain, combined with the ambitions of a future Confederate general, almost turned the Salish Sea into a war zone.

The so-called Pig War of 1859 may have been initiated by the killing of a boar, but other forces were at play that nearly elevated a neighborly conflict into an international conflagration.

The conflict took place on San Juan Island, a disputed territory that was home to both American and British colonists. And on the American side was a future Confederate general eager for conflict.

Crosscut's resident historian Knute Berger told the tale of the conflict in a recent episode of his Mossback's Northwest video series, but there is more to the story.

For this episode of the Mossback Podcast, Berger and co-host Sara Bernard talk about the conflict’s roots, how close the countries came to all-out war and how cooler heads prevailed.

Before listening, we suggest you watch the Mossback's Northwest episode about the Pig War here.

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Credits

Hosts: Sara Bernard, Knute Berger

Producer: Jonah Cohen

Executive producer: Mark Baumgarten

When Wyatt Earp Came to Seattle Oct 21, 2022

Show notes

There was money to be had during the Klondike Gold Rush of the late 1890s. And the infamous lawman knew how to get it.

Wyatt Earp was a man often on the move. In the two decades after his and Doc Holliday’s storied shootout at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, he spent time in San Francisco, Utah and Alaska, shading his reputation with turns as a sportsman, gambler and entrepreneur.

The gold rushes of the late 19th century charted the course for Earp and his common-law wife, Josephine, as they moved from boomtown to boomtown, which landed them, naturally, in turn-of-the-century Seattle. The young city was a launching point for tens of thousands of people looking for riches in the Klondike and a good place for an entrepreneur like Earp to “mine the miners.”

Crosscut’s resident historian Knute Berger told the tale of Earp’s time in Seattle in a recent episode of his Mossback’s Northwest video series, but there is more to the story.

For this episode of the Mossback podcast, Berger and co-host Sara Bernard discuss how the Gold Rush shaped Seattle, what Earp had hoped to find when he came to town and the possible reasons he left a short time after.

Before listening, we suggest you watch the Mossback's Northwest episode about Wyatt Earp here.

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Credits

Hosts: Sara Bernard, Knute Berger

Producer: Jonah Cohen

Executive producer: Mark Baumgarten

The Singing Protest of Paul Robeson Oct 14, 2022

Show notes

The accomplished actor, athlete and singer was an outspoken leftist, which made him a target in mid-1900s America.

The reasons Paul Robeson was a beloved figure in the middle of the 20th century are many. He was a professional athlete, an accomplished actor and a sought-after singer. Yet for some in American government, his role as an outspoken activist defined him.

Robeson's criticism of his country's race relations and foreign policy made him a pariah to those who viewed him as an ideological enemy of the U.S. in the emerging Cold War. Eventually his passport was seized, which threatened his livelihood and led to a series of concerts at the U.S.-Canada border in Washington.

Crosscut's resident historian Knute Berger told the tale of those concerts at the Peace Arch in Blaine in a recent episode of his Mossback's Northwest video series, but there is more to the story.

For this episode of the Mossback podcast, Berger and co-host Sara Bernard talk about Robeson's concerts in greater depth. They discuss why Robeson's politics were considered such a threat, how the travel ban impacted his career and how anti-Soviet fervor affected those who shared Robeson’s beliefs, if not his celebrity.

Before listening, we suggest you watch the Mossback's Northwest episode about Paul Robeson here.

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Credits

Hosts: Sara Bernard, Knute Berger

Producer: Jonah Cohen

Executive producer: Mark Baumgarten

Exploring the Life of Roald Amundsen Oct 07, 2022

Show notes

The famed Arctic explorer thrived when times were tough, and they were often tough.

In the years that followed he would become the first person to successfully reach the South Pole and, later, would travel to the North Pole. Before that latter trip, Amundsen returned to Seattle and set up camp for six months, updating his gear and shoring up his finances.

Crosscut's resident historian Knute Berger told the story of Amundsen's time in Seattle in a recent episode of his Mossback's Northwest video series, but there is much more to explore.

For this episode of the Mossback podcast, Berger and co-host Sara Bernard talk about Amundsen's great ambitions. They discuss what drove Amundsen to undertake such extreme endeavors, how he raised the money needed for his expeditions and the fellowship among explorers that would eventually lead to his apparent death.

Before listening, we suggest you watch the Mossback's Northwest episode about Roald Amundsen here.

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Credits

Hosts: Sara Bernard, Knute Berger

Producer: Jonah Cohen

Executive producer: Mark Baumgarten

The Portal at the Panama Hotel Sep 30, 2022

Show notes

The Seattle landmark is best known for its connection to the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II — but it has more stories to tell.

The Panama Hotel in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District is best known for the role it played during the expulsion and incarceration of Japanese Americans after President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066.

That order resulted in more than 120,000 men, women and children on the West Coast being forcibly removed from their homes, taking with them only what they could carry. The Panama agreed to keep safe what many who were removed from Seattle couldn't take with them, and now the hotel's basement serves as a time capsule.

Crosscut's resident historian Knute Berger told the story of this ugly period of American history in a recent episode of his Mossback's Northwest video series, but there is much more to discuss.

For this episode of the Mossback podcast, Berger and co-host Sara Bernard talk about the long history of the Panama Hotel. They discuss what made the hotel special for Japanese Americans and immigrants arriving in the city, the discrimination that came before and after Order 9066 and what Berger found when he walked among those forgotten belongings in the hotel's basement.

Before listening, we suggest you watch the original Mossback's Northwest episode about the Panama Hotel here.

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Credits

Hosts: Sara Bernard, Knute Berger

Producer: Jonah Cohen

Executive producer: Mark Baumgarten