Mossback
Crosscut
Subscribe
Mossback provides a deep look into the history of the Pacific Northwest, featuring details, factoids and analysis that didn’t make it into Mossback’s Northwest (KCTS 9).
Available episodes
Newest first
Oldest first
Nov 24, 2023
How Mount Mazama Became a Lake
Crater Lake wasn’t always a lake. Knute Berger tells the story of when a blast 50 times the size of Mt St. Helens' blanketed the PNW in ash.
Crater Lake National Park in southern Oregon is known for its crown jewel: a brilliantly blue and very deep alpine lake. But some 8,000 years ago, this lake was a mountain.
Then the mountain erupted, blowing its top and layering ash so far afield that it impacted wildlife in Canada. Indigenous people carry oral traditions that share what it was like to witness the blast.
Crosscut’s resident historian Knute Berger unearthed this history in a recent episode of the Mossback’s Northwest video series, but there is more left to uncover.
In this episode of Mossback, Berger joins co-host Stephen Hegg to more deeply understand the geologic history of the blast and the cultural history of what eventually became known as Mount Mazama. They also discuss the chance of this or any other volcano in the Pacific Northwest blowing again — and what impact that could have on all of us.
For more on all things Mossback, visit crosscut.com/mossback. To reach Knute Berger directly, drop him a line at knute.berger@crosscut.com. And if you’d like an exclusive weekly newsletter from Knute, where he offers greater insight into his latest historical discoveries, become a Crosscut member today.
---
Credits
Hosts: Stephen Hegg, Knute Berger
Producer: Seth Halleran
Story editors: Sara Bernard and Sarah Menzies
playlist_add
Nov 17, 2023
Preserving Asahel Curtis’ Legacy
Asahel Curtis shot thousands of images in the early 20th century. Knute Berger talks about the effort to share them with the public for the first time.
Asahel Curtis, the renowned Pacific Northwest photographer, was amazingly prolific. He documented regional life for 50 years, from the 1890s to the 1940s. Crosscut’s resident historian Knute Berger explored Curtis’ work and legacy in Season 5 of the Mossback’s Northwest video series, but that legacy now has a new chapter.
As Berger detailed in a more recent episode of Mossback’s Northwest, he’s revisiting Curtis’ story thanks to a new project that aims to digitize the approximately 60,000 glass plate and nitrate negatives that make up the photographer’s massive archive.
The Washington State Historical Society will spend the next few years painstakingly scanning each one. The goal is not only to preserve the history the images contain, but also to share them — for free — with the public.
In this episode of Mossback, Berger joins co-host Stephen Hegg to discuss the digitization project and all it entails, as well as a handful of remarkable photographs the process has turned up already. Plus, they dig into the philosophical aspects of photography in an increasingly online, AI-driven world, where notions of fact and reality can seem elusive.
For more on all things Mossback, visit crosscut.com/mossback. To reach Knute Berger directly, drop him a line at knute.berger@crosscut.com. And if you’d like an exclusive weekly newsletter from Knute, where he offers greater insight into his latest historical discoveries, become a Crosscut member today.
---
Credits
Hosts: Stephen Hegg, Knute Berger
Producer: Seth Halleran
Story editors: Sara Bernard and Sarah Menzies
playlist_add
Nov 10, 2023
The Mother of the Pacific Crest Trail
Catherine Montgomery spearheaded a movement to preserve old growth in Washington forests. Knute Berger shares her story.
In the early 1900s in Washington, women couldn’t yet vote, but many formed powerful civic groups to advocate for everything from prison reform to forest preservation.
One woman stands out: the mountaineer, teacher, activist and suffragist Catherine Montgomery. Her advocacy helped support women’s empowerment, protect wilderness and old growth trees, and even plant the first seed for what would later become the Pacific Crest Trail.
Crosscut’s resident historian Knute Berger introduced us to Catherine Montgomery’s legacy in a recent episode of the Mossback’s Northwest video series, but there is more left to explore.
In this episode of Mossback, Berger joins co-host Stephen Hegg to paint a picture of Montgomery’s life, the political and social context of her time, and the tough work Montgomery and many other women undertook in that era to advocate for forests and other social causes in the face of rapid development. Plus, we hear what it’s like to visit the little-known park she helped create.
For more on all things Mossback, visit crosscut.com/mossback. To reach Knute Berger directly, drop him a line at knute.berger@crosscut.com. And if you’d like an exclusive weekly newsletter from Knute, where he offers greater insight into his latest historical discoveries, become a Crosscut member today.
---
Credits
Hosts: Stephen Hegg, Knute Berger
Producer: Seth Halleran
Story editors: Sara Bernard and Sarah Menzies
playlist_add
Nov 3, 2023
The Explosion that Rocked Seattle
In 1915, Germany wanted to keep the United States from joining World War I. Knute Berger explains how the fight came to the Northwest.
In the years leading up to World War I, Germany and its sympathizers tried to prevent the United States from entering the conflict. An intricate network of spies and saboteurs attempted to sway public opinion as well as interrupt shipments of war materiel at U.S. ports.
Seattle was not immune to these forces. In the wee hours of May 30, 1915, a scow packed with dynamite near Harbor Island lit up the skies. The blast marked the beginning of an era of anti-German sentiment; the Espionage Act; and, of course, the U.S.’s eventual involvement in both world wars.
Crosscut’s resident historian Knute Berger blew open this history in a recent episode of the Mossback’s Northwest video series, but there is much more to the story.
In this episode of Mossback, Berger joins co-host Stephen Hegg to discuss the murky details of this gigantic explosion in Seattle, the geopolitical context surrounding it, similar efforts by German saboteurs across the U.S. at that time, and the way these pre-war histories are remembered—and forgotten.
For more on all things Mossback, visit crosscut.com/mossback. To reach Knute Berger directly, drop him a line at knute.berger@crosscut.com. And if you’d like an exclusive weekly newsletter from Knute, where he offers greater insight into his latest historical discoveries, become a Crosscut member today.
---
Credits
Hosts: Stephen Hegg, Knute Berger
Producer: Seth Halleran
Story editors: Sara Bernard and Sarah Menzies
playlist_add
Oct 27, 2023
The Black Migration to Victoria
Still encountering racism in the 'free' states of the West, some Black communities sought the American Dream in Canada.
Before the Civil War, many states in the American West were considered “free” because the institution of slavery was outlawed. That didn’t mean, however, that these places were free from racism and legalized discrimination.
So when a group of Black Americans from San Francisco were invited to join what was then a British colony in Victoria, on Vancouver Island, hundreds agreed to make the journey. The result was a mixed bag of freedom, opportunity, and, in some cases, encounters with the same discrimination they’d attempted to escape.
Crosscut’s resident historian Knute Berger explored this complex history in a recent episode of the Mossback’s Northwest video series, but there is much more left to discuss.
In this episode of Mossback, Berger joins co-host Stephen Hegg to lay out the context surrounding the Black exodus to Victoria and key figures in that history, including one who had a significant impact on the city of Seattle. Plus, we hear about one of the only known examples of the Underground Railroad in the Pacific Northwest.
For more on all things Mossback, visit crosscut.com/mossback. To reach Knute Berger directly, drop him a line at knute.berger@crosscut.com. And if you’d like an exclusive weekly newsletter from Knute, where he offers greater insight into his latest historical discoveries, become a Crosscut member today.
---
Credits
Hosts: Stephen Hegg, Knute Berger
Producer: Seth Halleran
Story editors: Sara Bernard and Sarah Menzies
playlist_add
Oct 20, 2023
Putting the P in P-Patch
P-Patches launched a modern agricultural movement in the 1970s, sprouting from a small family farm in Wedgwood.
Seattle was once full of farms. But as the city developed, land-use regulation and other forces began to push farmers out.
One farming family feeling the squeeze in Seattle in the 1970s helped launch a program that has had a profound impact on the city ever since. A piece of their land became the first of what is now a collection of about 90 public urban gardens, or “P-Patches.”
Crosscut’s resident historian Knute Berger dug into this history and what it represents in a recent episode of the Mossback’s Northwest video series, but there is a lot more left to unearth.
In this episode of Mossback, Berger joins co-host Stephen Hegg to discuss Seattle’s early efforts at farm-to-table living, how the rise of supermarkets and other economic forces almost derailed them, the details of the first P-Patch and what these popular gardens now symbolize in an ever-changing city.
For more on all things Mossback, visit crosscut.com/mossback. To reach Knute Berger directly, drop him a line at knute.berger@crosscut.com. And if you’d like an exclusive weekly newsletter from Knute, where he offers greater insight into his latest historical discoveries, become a Crosscut member today.
---
Credits
Hosts: Stephen Hegg, Knute Berger
Producer: Seth Halleran
Story editors: Sara Bernard and Sarah Menzies
playlist_add
Oct 13, 2023
The Past and Future of Grizzlies in Washington
The North Cascades' bear population thrived in the 19th century, but now almost none are left. Advocates are working to bring them back.
The iconic grizzly bear once roamed the North Cascades. Grizzly bones have also been found as far west as Whidbey Island. Today, however, there are almost no grizzlies left in Washington state.
Some government agencies have started the process of potentially reintroducing the bears to the region, given their history as a key part of the ecosystem. This idea, however, isn’t without controversy.
Crosscut’s resident historian Knute Berger dug into this history and controversy in a recent episode of the Mossback’s Northwest video series, but there’s more left to explore.
In this episode of Mossback, Berger joins co-host Stephen Hegg to ask what evidence we have of grizzlies in Washington’s historical record, why the bears have mostly disappeared and why some want to bring them back. Plus, Berger and Hegg offer some sound advice on bear etiquette.
For more on all things Mossback, visit crosscut.com/mossback. To reach Knute Berger directly, drop him a line at knute.berger@crosscut.com. And if you’d like an exclusive weekly newsletter from Knute, where he offers greater insight into his latest historical discoveries, become a Crosscut member today.
---
Credits
Hosts: Stephen Hegg, Knute Berger
Producer: Seth Halleran
Story editors: Sara Bernard and Sarah Menzies
playlist_add
Oct 6, 2023
The Flight Heard Round the World
In 1924, four airplanes took off from what’s now Magnuson Park. Six months and more than 26,000 miles later, half the fleet made it back.
The 1920s marked an era of aviation. After World War I, many powerful nations focused on the new technology and rushed to be the first to use it to circumnavigate the globe.
In 1924, the U.S. military selected eight Army pilots and four specially made biplanes with open-air cockpits to make that first attempt. The pilots were called “the Magellans of the Sky” after the celebrated 16th-century explorer who tried the same feat on the sea. Their official launch site? The shores of Sand Point, or what’s now Magnuson Park in Seattle.
Crosscut’s resident historian Knute Berger shone a light on these lesser-known Magellans in a recent episode of the Mossback’s Northwest video series, but there’s more left to highlight.
In this episode of Mossback, Berger joins co-host Stephen Hegg to dig deeper into the reasons behind the attempt, the physical dangers and geopolitical challenges the pilots faced, the flight’s global significance and its relationship to Boeing. They also discuss the Centennial Celebration that will mark the anniversary of the flight in 2024, exactly where the planes launched and landed a century ago.
For more on all things Mossback, visit crosscut.com/mossback. To reach Knute Berger directly, drop him a line at knute.berger@crosscut.com. And if you’d like an exclusive weekly newsletter from Knute, where he offers greater insight into his latest historical discoveries, become a Crosscut member today.
---
Credits
Hosts: Stephen Hegg, Knute Berger
Producer: Seth Halleran
Story editors: Sara Bernard and Sarah Menzies
Executive producer: Sarah Menzies
playlist_add
May 25, 2023
Why Is There a Stonehenge in Washington?
The millionaire built a 'castle' on the Columbia River and later a replica of the English monument.
The Stonehenge that sits atop Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, has long inspired speculation of its purpose and imitators to its form. One of those imitators overlooks the Columbia River in Washington state where it inspires questions: Who built the replica and why?
The answer to the first part of that question is Samuel Hill, a wealthy railroad man who marveled at the landscape the abutted the river and who enjoyed building things out of concrete, including the replica and roads.
In a recent episode of the Mossback’s Northwest video series, Knute Berger tells the story of Sam Hill and his concrete curiosity overlooking the Columbia.
But there is more to the story. For this episode of the Mossback podcast, Berger and co-host Stephen Hegg explore the origins of the monument and attempt to answer the second part of the question: Why?
Before listening, we suggest you watch the Mossback's Northwest episode about Samuel Hill and his Stonehenge here.
---
Credits
Hosts: Stephen Hegg, Knute Berger
Producer: Seth Halleran
Executive producer: Mark Baumgarten
playlist_add
May 18, 2023
How the Frango Became a Northwest Fixture
For decades, department stores competed for customers. Knute Berger recalls how Frederick & Nelson lured them in with a chocolate mint truffle.
Food does more than feed us. It connects us, to each other, to traditions and to place. This is true everywhere, but especially in the Pacific Northwest, where an abundance of life creates endless options for indulgence.
Salmon, apples and even chicken teriyaki all have a spot in the hearts of Northwesterners, but there is one delectable that seems to inspire a particularly intense and mouthwatering nostalgia: the Frango.
Host Knute Berger and Stephen Hegg discussed the Seattle-made chocolate treat in a recent episode of the Mossback’s Northwest video series. But there is more to the story.
For this episode of the Mossback podcast, Berger and co-host Stephen Hegg dig into the origin and cultural impact of the Frango. They discuss how the chocolate mint truffle was a part of a larger department-store culture that shaped the rituals of the region for many, and they explore some of the other sweets created here.
Before listening, we suggest you watch the Mossback's Northwest episode about Frangos and other Northwest delights here.
---
Credits
Hosts: Stephen Hegg, Knute Berger
Producer: Seth Halleran
Executive producer: Mark Baumgarten
playlist_add
May 11, 2023
The Naked Truth of Nature Man
Earnest Darling was a regular Northwestern kid until an illness inspired him to shed his clothes and take to the woods. Fame followed.
On the desk of Crosscut's resident historian Kute Berger sits a black-and-white photograph of a man with a kind of contemporary look. He is standing, bearded, in what looks like a tropical setting. And he’s wearing a mesh crop top.
This is Earnest Darling and the photo, surprisingly, was taken in 1908. "He looks like someone I went to college with at the Evergreen State College in 1972," says Berger.
Darling did go to college, at Stanford University, but dropped out and became a wanderer in a loincloth, living off the land, inspiring numerous newspaper articles and even striking up a friendship with adventurer and author Jack London.
In a recent episode of the Mossback’s Northwest video series, Berger tells the story of Darling and his rise to fame as an early-20th century curiosity.
But there is more to the story. For this episode of the Mossb…
playlist_add
May 4, 2023
When Holllywood Came to Seattle
When a film is shot in a city, it is often a big deal. There are lots of trucks, lots of crew and lots of traffic disruption. It’s big business, and for the latter decades of the 20th century it was business that was often done in Seattle.
Tugboat Annie, the first Hollywood film shot in the Emerald City, came to town in the 1930s. But it wasn’t until the early ’60s that Seattle really became a destination for directors and actors. It started with the Elvis Presley vehicle It Happened at the World’s Fair and continued with The Parallax View and Scorchy in the ’70s up to Singles and Sleepless in Seattle in the ’90s.
Crosscut's resident historian Knute Berger reviewed this filmography 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 Stephen Hegg talk about the movies made in and about Seattle, why Hollywood came to the city to make them and what these films tell us a…
playlist_add
Apr 27, 2023
The Tree Stump Craze That Swept the Northwest
During the timber boom, opportunists turned the remains of old-growth trees into homes and postcard spectacles.
The timber boom of the early 20th century reshaped both the places and the population of the Pacific Northwest. At one point, 63 percent of wage earners in Washington were drawing a paycheck from the industry that was felling the old-growth forests to produce lumber and profits.
The remains of those trees – their massive, imposing stumps – served as a kind of cultural signifier for the people and an inspiration for their creativity and ingenuity. Images of stumps as homes, dance floors and stages for feats of derring-do proliferated.
Crosscut's resident historian told the story of these gargantuan stumps 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 Stephen Hegg talk about the outsized influence of these stumps on the region’s early settlers. They discuss…
playlist_add
Apr 20, 2023
When the Confederacy Came to Seattle
Decades after the Civil War, southern sympathizers sought to rewrite history. Knute Berger explains how those efforts were received in the Northwest.
When Gone With the Wind premiered in Seattle in 1940, it was an event. Moviegoers who ventured Downtown to attend a showing of the Civil War drama were met with fanfare. The street outside The 5th Avenue Theatre, where the film was playing, was decorated as if for a Fourth of July parade, with one notable exception: the presence of Confederate flags.
These flags could be seen in brief footage of Downtown that was featured in an earlier episode of the Mossback's Northwest video series about the Seattle Freeze. And while the production team didn't notice, viewers did.
In a recent episode of Mossback’s Northwest, Knute Berger and producer Stephen Hegg discuss the feedback and the historical investigation that followed. But there is still more to the story.
For this episode of the Mossback podcast, both Berger and Hegg discuss changing…
playlist_add
Apr 13, 2023
The Case of the Pickled Orca
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 Mo…
playlist_add
Apr 7, 2023
The New Deal and the Northwest
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 th…
playlist_add
Nov 17, 2022
Frank Waldron and the Jackson Street Jazz Scene
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 exp…
playlist_add
Nov 10, 2022
Emily Carr’s Mysterious and Majestic Forests
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 o…
playlist_add
Nov 3, 2022
Chief Joseph’s Seattle Sojourn
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…
playlist_add
Oct 27, 2022
The Pig War That Almost Was
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.
---…
playlist_add
Oct 20, 2022
When Wyatt Earp Came to Seattle
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 podc…
playlist_add
Oct 13, 2022
The Singing Protest of Paul Robeson
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…
playlist_add
Oct 6, 2022
Exploring the Life of Roald Amundsen
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.
---
Credits
Hosts: Sara Bernard,…
playlist_add
Sep 29, 2022
The Portal at the Panama Hotel
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…
playlist_add
Sep 20, 2022
Who Really Designed the Space Needle?
Newly discovered files shed light on the creation of the Seattle icon and the fight over who deserves the credit for its distinctive look. Hear all about it in this special preview of the new Crosscut podcast, Crosscut Reports.
When the Space Needle rose quickly on the Seattle city skyline, the response was varied. Some loved it, some hated it. Some likened it to a flower blossoming, others said it resembled a mushroom cloud. The Cold War was on everyone’s mind. So was the future. The Needle was supposed to represent the Space Age, a bright future that looked to the stars. It was also supposed to represent the aspirations of the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair, also called the Century 21 Exposition, and reflect the forward-looking city itself.
But in the fall of 1961, as the Needle tower neared completion and the citizenry warmed to it, controversy broke out, an all-out war of words between the architects — Victor Steinbrueck and his boss John “Jack” Graham, Jr.
That there was a…
playlist_add
Jun 10, 2022
Introducing the Black Arts Legacies Podcast!
Enjoy this short excerpt of Crosscut's newest podcast title, which features host Brooklyn Jamerson-Flowers touring the places that have fostered Seattle’s Black artists.
Every episode of the Black Arts Legacies podcast explores the history and ongoing impact of an art spaces in Seattle, the stories of each built around the voices of the artists who claim these places as critical to their development and experts who understand their deep history.
The podcast is part of Black Arts Legacies, a major multimedia project from Crosscut also featuring profiles, original photography, and videos all about Black arts and artists in Seattle.
Subscribe to the Black Arts Legacies podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or Google Play.
playlist_add
Mar 29, 2022
The Real Story of the Mercer Girls
In pop culture, the relocation of 'marriageable' women to places like Seattle was played as a humorous, feel-good story. It wasn’t.
In the midst of the Civil War, a man named Asa Mercer headed East to seek out women to move to the small frontier town of Seattle. It’s a familiar story, one that served as inspiration for a television show called Here Come the Brides and the musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.
Those shows played the scheme for good-hearted laughs, but the reality was no laughing matter. Settling the frontier was a largely male enterprise, and the desire for women for labor, partnership and sex led to practices that highlighted the patriarchy, racism and exploitation that shaped early American life.
Knute Berger touched on this 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 discuss the conditions that gave rise to the so-called…
playlist_add
Mar 22, 2022
The Rise and Ruin of the Cayton-Revels Family
Horace Cayton Sr. headed west in the late 19th century and found success and opportunity in Seattle. Then an ugly new era changed the city and his family's fortunes.
When Cayton moved out of the Jim Crow South in the late 19th century, it appeared that the young man had found a new kind of freedom and opportunity in Seattle.
A member of the city's then-small African American population, Cayton started a widely read publication, The Seattle Republican, and with his wife, Suzie Sumner Revels, found considerable success.
Then, in the early 20th century, the forces of segregation and bigotry became much more prevalent in the city, erecting racial barriers and leading to financial ruin for the Cayton-Revels family.
Knute Berger touched on this 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 retrace the history of the family and discuss how the late-arrivi…
playlist_add
Mar 15, 2022
Famous Dogs of the PNW
From Lewis and Clark’s trusted companion to a lifesaving sled dog, these canines have been honored with statues, taxidermy and legend.
It is a well-documented fact that, in Seattle at least, dogs outnumber children. And while that ratio may even out as you look further afield, its hard to deny that dogs have a major influence over life in the Pacific Northwest.
That has long been the case and the roles that those dogs have played in the story of the region have been varied and include the woolly dogs bred by the Coast Salish peoples, an intrepid companion to storied explorers and one globe-trotting mascot to a federal agency.
Knute Berger touched on this history of hounds in a recent episode of his Mossback’s Northwest video series, but there is more to explore.
For this episode of the Mossback podcast, Berger and co-host Sara Bernard delve deeper into the dogs covered in the video and tell the true story of Balto the Wonder Dog, who was maybe not as wonderful as early reports…
playlist_add
Mar 8, 2022
The Photographer Who Defined the PNW
Brother to Edward, Asahel Curtis had his own approach to capturing the culture of the region.
The way we see the modern history of the Pacific Northwest would have been very different if a certain family of homesteaders hadn't settled in Kitsap County in the late nineteenth century.
Out of that family of farmers would come, not one, but two prolific photographers whose work would help define the region for generations to come.
Edward Curtis is the more famous of the two brothers, his stylized portraits of Native Americans securing himself a place in the pantheon of frontier photographers. But his younger brother Asahel has his own legacy and an encyclopedic portfolio of images that serves as a more accurate record of life in the Northwest at the turn of the century.
Knute Berger touched on this history 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 go deep…
playlist_add
Feb 15, 2022
How Crab Louis Became King
No one really knows who made the first of these delicacies, but some sleuthing reveals an origin spurred by the gold rush and railroads.
Crab has been a part of the culture of what we now call the Pacific Northwest for a very long time. But how the people of this region eat that crab has changed over the years and those changes can tell a lot.
Take Crab Louis, for instance. As a dish it is fairly simple: some crab, some vegetables, some red sauce. Yet the story of Crab Louis is one of western colonial expansion that brought with it new agricultural practices and norms.
It is a history that host Knute Berger touched on in a recent episode of his Mossback’s Northwest video series, but there is much more to the story.
For this episode of the Mossback podcast, Berger and co-host Sara Bernard talk about how the gold rush and railroads changed cuisine in the Pacific Northwest and how tracking down the origins of a recipe is a lot like searching for the origins of folklore. Plus, Knute…
playlist_add
Feb 8, 2022
Who Was Paul Bunyan For?
The legendary lumberjack has been central to American identity. But who does he really represent?
Over the course of the past two centuries, tall tales of Paul Bunyan have stretched across North America, from the frigid woods of the East Coast all the way to the Pacific. With his ax and his ox Babe, the legendary lumberjack is said to have single-handedly shaped the continent.
That was all fiction, of course. Much of the landscape that Bunyan is credited with creating was here long before any white man with an ax showed up. And the forces that would actually reshape the land in the 19th and 20th centuries consisted of multitudes, many of them felling trees in the Pacific Northwest.
Knute Berger touched on this 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 dissect the folklore and ask why, exactly, Paul Bunyan was created, who did he serve and what w…
playlist_add
Feb 1, 2022
Where Did All the Sea Monsters Go?
Headlines about sea creatures were once a regular occurrence around the Salish Sea. We take a deep dive into local lore.
When it comes to cryptids, there is one creature that puts the Pacific Northwest on the map: Sasquatch. But Bigfoot hasn’t always had a monopoly on mysterious sightings in the area. Sea monsters long inspired horror and fascination around the Salish Sea and on the Pacific Coast.
Large creatures in the waters of the Northwest are depicted in Indigenous artworks from precolonial times, and frontier newspapers regularly carried tales of frightening sea creatures. The tales continued well into the 20th century. As recently as the 1960s, Seattle residents claimed to have seen a sea monster in the waters of Lake Washington. But if not monstrous beings, what were people seeing?
That is a question that host Knute Berger touched on 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,…
playlist_add
Jan 25, 2022
Why D.B. Cooper Won’t Disappear
A closer examination — with more theories — of the case of the world’s most famous mile-high bandit.
On the afternoon of Nov. 24, 1971, a man calling himself Dan Cooper boarded a Seattle-bound 727 in Portland, with plans to pull off what would become a historic heist. Later that night, the man leapt from the plane with $200,000 in hand and, presumably, a parachute on his back. He was never heard from again.
Yet the story of that high-flying crime has been told innumerable times, turning the man who became known as D.B. Cooper into a kind of folk hero. Now, 50 years later, the questions surrounding the fate of the polite hijacker who claimed to carry a bomb onto a Northwest Orient flight have led to a bigger question: Why are we so fascinated with D.B. Cooper?
It is a question that host Knute Berger touched on in an episode of his Mossback’s Northwest video series late last year, but there is much more to discuss.
For this inaugural episode of the Mossback podcast, Berger an…
playlist_add
Jan 11, 2022
Introducing the Mossback podcast!
Mossback is the companion podcast to the popular Mossback’s Northwest video series that airs on KCTS 9. The Mossback podcast digs deeper into the topics that fans want to know more about from the current season of Mossback’s Northwest.
Hosted by Sara Bernard, each episode of this series will feature an interview with Mossback, Knute Berger, about one episode of the video series. The podcasts will provide stories and factoids that were left on the cutting room floor, along with critical analysis from Berger and a greater context that will stitch each topic into the long, storied history of the Pacific Northwest.
In this preview teaser, Bernard and Berger chat about the origins and aims of their new venture.
---
Credits
Hosts: Sara Bernard, Knute Berger
Editorial assistance: Mason Bryan
Executive Producer: Mark Baumgarten
playlist_add