The Evergreen
OPB’s weekly podcast creates an audio portrait of the Pacific Northwest. We tell the stories of the people, places, communities and cultures that make up this region. It’s a podcast about the place YOU live, the places you love, and the geography you feel connected to.
Most Recent Episode
What to do with the bounty of Oregon’s harvest
It’s that time of year when many Oregonians are enjoying an abundance of garden produce. Evergreen host Jenn Chávez learned about making blackberry jam and got some advice on what to do with her own garden peppers from Heather Arndt Anderson, the food writer and culinary historian behind OPB’s Superabundant newsletter. OPB’s Crystal Ligori offers us a window into the history of Oregon’s fish canning industry as well as its future. And we get to visit ōkta farm, where food preservation is key to one restaurant’s farm-to-table model.
You can read more about Pacific Northwest foods and sign up for the Superabundant newsletter here.
For more Evergreen episodes and to share your voice with us, visit our showpage.
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More Episodes
Disaster 101: What do you need in your emergency kit?
On today’s episode, we’re preparing for disasters. Whether it’s extreme heat, wildfires or a looming earthquake – we know how unpredictable disasters in the Pacific Northwest can be. What are some things we can have prepared in an emergency like this?
OPB’s lands and environmental policies reporter April Ehrlich, who’s reported on and experienced wildfires, gives us tips on what to include in your emergency kit, what to do if you have to evacuate and more.
For up-to-date information on wildfires and air quality across the region, you can visit opb.org/wildfires at any time.
For more Evergreen episodes and to share your voice with us, visit our showpage.
Follow OPB on Instagram, and follow host Jenn Chávez too.
You can sign up for OPB’s newsletters to get what you need in your inbox regularly.
Don’t forget to check out our many podcasts, which can be found on any of your favorite podcast apps:
And many more! Check out our full show list here.
Radical Oregonian Marie Equi’s Legacy Lives On
Who was the badass woman who became the namesake for Portland’s only lesbian bar? Dr. Marie Equi was born in 1872 and came to Oregon at the age of 20. She became known as a radical and lived an extraordinary life. She was a fierce advocate for women’s rights and reproductive freedom as well as an activist for workers’ rights. She staged a one-woman anti-war protest during World War I. She was also a physician and lived openly as a lesbian.
You can watch the full Oregon Experience episode on Marie Equi on the PBS app.
For more Evergreen episodes and to share your voice with us, visit our showpage.
Follow OPB on Instagram, and follow host Jenn Chávez too.
You can sign up for OPB’s newsletters to get what you need in your inbox regularly.
Don’t forget to check out our many podcasts, which can be found on any of your favorite podcast apps:
And many more! Check out our full show list here.
How the Pacific Northwest is shaping coffee culture
When people think of the Pacific Northwest, along with gray skies and evergreen trees, coffee often comes to mind. That’s because some of the most iconic modern coffee brands — Starbucks, Stumptown, Dutch Bros — all call our region home. For a place that doesn’t even grow coffee, we’ve had an outsized influence on the global coffee culture and are continuing to shape its future. Crystal Ligori tells us the story.
Watch Crystal’s documentary for Superabundant here.
For more Evergreen episodes and to share your voice with us, visit our showpage.
Follow OPB on Instagram, and follow host Jenn Chávez too.
You can sign up for OPB’s newsletters to get what you need in your inbox regularly.
Don’t forget to check out our many podcasts, which can be found on any of your favorite podcast apps:
And many more! Check out our full show list here.
Hush: The State of Oregon v. Jesse Lee Johnson
On March 20,1998, police in Salem, Oregon, discovered the body of a 28-year-old Harriet Thompson inside her apartment. Within a week, they arrested Jesse Johnson for murder. Johnson drifted west after a troubled childhood in Arkansas and a stint in prison there. In Salem, he was known around town as a homeless drug user. A random encounter with Thompson the week before she was killed changed Johnson’s life forever.
This week The Evergreen listeners get a special sneak preview — the first episode of OPB’s new podcast ‘Hush,’ which officially drops next week.
For more Evergreen episodes and to share your voice with us, visit our showpage.
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Don’t forget to check out our many podcasts, which can be found on any of your favorite podcast apps:
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And many more! Check out our full show list here.
Music across boundaries, music as home: Diaspora Songs at Pickathon
American country music, sometimes described as ‘three chords and the truth,’ can be a great vehicle for storytelling. And many songs share a nostalgia for a certain idea of home. But for those whose ancestors have traveled long distances, home can often be a messy concept. A few years ago, three Oregon musicians and artists started getting together to play and share music, informally calling themselves Diaspora Songs. They are all lovers of country and folk music, as well as writers and scholars. Dao Strom is a poet, musician, and multimedia artist — she’s the author of the book “Instrument.” Julian Saporiti is a musician and creator of No No Boy, a songwriting and multimedia project about Asian American history. And Alicia Jo Rabins is a poet, musician and Jewish educator — she’s the author of the poetry collection “Fruit Geode.”
All three joined Evergreen host Jenn Chávez on stage at the Pickathon Experiential Music Festival to sing and play and talk about their work.
For more Evergreen episodes and to share your voice with us, visit our showpage.
Follow OPB on Instagram, and follow host Jenn Chávez too.
You can sign up for OPB’s newsletters to get what you need in your inbox regularly.
Don’t forget to check out our many podcasts, which can be found on any of your favorite podcast apps:
And many more! Check out our full show list here.
Music and spiders woven together with web science. Behold: the SpiderHarp
What if a spider could play the harp?
OK, sure, there aren’t spider virtuosos in little tuxedos out there performing harp concerts. But there IS a harp-like musical instrument inspired by a spider’s web, complete with a mechanical spider perched in the middle, and it was dreamt up in Oregon. It’s meant to simulate how spiders use vibrations in their webs to understand the world around them. Scientists at Oregon State University wanted to explore how these spidey-senses work, so an engineer who studies spiders and an engineer who designs musical instruments came together to create: the SpiderHarp.
OPB “Oregon Field Guide” producer Jule Gilfillan met the team of scientists behind the SpiderHarp and brings us this story of how art, science, humans and spiders meet to make harp music.
For more Evergreen episodes and to share your voice with us, visit our showpage.
Follow OPB on Instagram, and follow host Jenn Chávez too.
You can sign up for OPB’s newsletters to get what you need in your inbox regularly.
Don’t forget to check out our many podcasts, which can be found on any of your favorite podcast apps:
And many more! Check out our full show list here.
Pig-N-Ford tradition endures in Tillamook County
You may be familiar with ferris wheels, funnel cakes, quilting competitions, and demolition derbies. But the Tillamook County Fair has a unique event you’ve probably never heard of: Pig-N Ford races. Racers hold piglets while driving around a dirt track on stripped down Ford Model T cars (sounds cute, right?) The tradition has endured for close to 100 years and some families have been racing for generations. OPB Oregon Field Guide producer Ian McCluskey takes us to Tillamook County to find out what keeps this event going.
For more Evergreen episodes and to share your voice with us, visit our showpage.
Follow OPB on Instagram, and follow host Jenn Chávez too.
You can sign up for OPB’s newsletters to get what you need in your inbox regularly.
Don’t forget to check out our many podcasts, which can be found on any of your favorite podcast apps:
And many more! Check out our full show list here.
Can honey make computers faster and cleaner?
Honey may be one of the weirder things you’ll see in a science lab. But researchers at Washington State University Vancouver say honey is key to what they’re working on: faster, cleaner computers.
OPB’s science reporter Jes Burns learned about their research - including the effort to make computer chips work more like human brains - and gives us an inside look. You can check out Jes’s full coverage of this story in her recent episode of “All Science. No Fiction.”
For more Evergreen episodes and to share your voice with us, visit our showpage.
Follow OPB on Instagram, and follow host Jenn Chávez too.
You can sign up for OPB’s newsletters to get what you need in your inbox regularly.
Don’t forget to check out our many podcasts, which can be found on any of your favorite podcast apps:
And many more! Check out our full show list here.
How abandoned veteran remains in Oregon funeral homes were finally given a proper burial
Carolyn Arntson and Denise Hatch have spent the past few years sorting through thousands of old cardboard boxes abandoned at Oregon funeral homes with one goal in mind: to find the remains of veterans, and get them interred at Willamette National Cemetery. OPB general assignment reporter Joni Auden Land has been following these women on their journey and tells us how the two sifted through boxes of ashes to finally give Oregon veterans a proper burial.
For more Evergreen episodes and to share your voice with us, visit our showpage.
Follow OPB on Instagram, and follow host Jenn Chávez too.
You can sign up for OPB’s newsletters to get what you need in your inbox regularly.
Don’t forget to check out our many podcasts, which can be found on any of your favorite podcast apps:
And many more! Check out our full show list here.
Marking Pride with intergenerational conversations among queer people
June is officially Pride month, but queer celebrations spill over into July – Portland Pride is this weekend. And of course, queer visibility shouldn’t be limited to one month of the year; it’s important all the time. Pride is about celebrating queer communities and it’s also a chance to learn about queer history. We bring you two intergenerational conversations about the importance of history, and combating queer erasure with friendship and resilience. You can find more coverage of Pride in the Pacific Northwest here.
For more Evergreen episodes and to share your voice with us, visit our showpage.
Follow OPB on Instagram, and follow host Jenn Chávez too.
You can sign up for OPB’s newsletters to get what you need in your inbox regularly.
Don’t forget to check out our many podcasts, which can be found on any of your favorite podcast apps:
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And many more! Check out our full show list here.
Is there a cult in Ashland?
Oregon has a unique history with cults — remember Rajneeshpuram, the inspiration for the docuseries Wild Wild Country? A spiritual group known as TwinRay is based in Ashland, Oregon. The leaders dress in all white and charge thousands of dollars for online classes. Are they a cult? OPB reporter Leah Sottile fills us in on the details. You can read her recent article on TwinRay here.
For more Evergreen episodes and to share your voice with us, visit our showpage.
Follow OPB on Instagram, and follow host Jenn Chávez too.
You can sign up for OPB’s newsletters to get what you need in your inbox regularly.
Don’t forget to check out our many podcasts, which can be found on any of your favorite podcast apps:
And many more! Check out our full show list here.
At Work With a taffy maker, a rural mail carrier and a poet
Hi! It’s Jenn Chávez, host of The Evergreen. When I’m walking around, I often wonder about the lives of people I see at work, in different professions. What made them want to have that job in the first place? Is it hard? Do they see themselves doing that forever?
Lucky for me, I have the perfect job to ask people those questions. For our latest “At Work With” episode, where we talk to a Pacific Northwesterners with cool jobs and ask them your questions about what it’s like to do what they do, we bring you along as we go to work with a poet, a rural mail carrier and a family of taffy makers.
For our “At Work With” series, let us know who you want to hear from next! You can also send us questions you have for our next “At Work With” interview. Email us at theevergreen@opb.org or visit our web page to submit questions.
At Work With poet Anis Mojgani social media reel.
At Work With rural mail carrier Connie Gunn social media reel.
For more Evergreen episodes and to share your voice with us, visit our showpage.
Follow OPB on Instagram, and follow host Jenn Chávez too.
You can sign up for OPB’s newsletters to get what you need in your inbox regularly.
Don’t forget to check out our many podcasts, which can be found on any of your favorite podcast apps:
And many more! Check out our full show list here.
Water rights in much of Oregon are still based on policies dating back to the 1900s
Water rights are super confusing. In the face of ongoing drought, farms, homes, wildlife and commercial users like golf courses and resorts are all competing for this precious resource. OPB’s Central Oregon Bureau Chief Emily Cureton Cook joins us to help shed some light on the situation and what changes could be on the horizon.
For more coverage on Oregon’s struggle with drought and water usage, check out Emily’s deep dive here.
For more Evergreen episodes and to share your voice with us, visit our showpage.
Follow OPB on Instagram, and follow host Jenn Chávez too.
You can sign up for OPB’s newsletters to get what you need in your inbox regularly.
Don’t forget to check out our many podcasts, which can be found on any of your favorite podcast apps:
And many more! Check out our full show list here.
Oregon had a goal to graduate all high school students by 2025. Why is that so hard?
Last week, we introduced you to OPB’s Class of 2025 project, where we are following a class of kindergarteners on their journey all the way through high school. The idea stems from a goal Oregon set more than a decade ago – a 100% high school graduation rate by 2025.
As the Class of 2025 has grown, so has Oregon. That once tall order of a 100% high school graduation rate is no longer the goal. Oregon’s new governor Tina Kotek has another goal in mind: 90% high school graduation rate by 2027.
This week, we want to ask some of the tough questions raised by the reporting OPB has done over the last decade with this project. The biggest ones: Why is Oregon's graduation rate still lower than other states, even after focusing on improving it all these years? And maybe more broadly - is trying to get to 100 percent even the right goal? If it's not, what is? Education reporter Elizabeth Miller is back with us this week to help answer these questions.
Check out OPB’s Class of 2025 podcast.
Check out OPB’s Class of 2025 reporting.
For more Evergreen episodes and to share your voice with us, visit our showpage.
Follow OPB on Instagram, and follow host Jenn Chávez too.
You can sign up for OPB’s newsletters to get what you need in your inbox regularly.
Don’t forget to check out our many podcasts, which can be found on any of your favorite podcast apps:
And many more! Check out our full show list here.
A window into the Class of 2025, and what keeps students from graduating
Over a decade ago, former Oregon governor John Kitzhaber announced an aspirational goal to improve the state’s low-ranking high school graduation rate. His mission: a 100% graduation by 2025.
If successful, Oregon would catapult its rock-bottom national ranking to the top. It was a very ambitious goal. And so back in 2012 - when ‘Call Me Maybe’ was the song you heard everywhere - OPB set out on a very ambitious goal too. We decided to document the stories of a kindergarten class on their journey all the way through high school.
Now, the twenty-seven students we met when they were six years old are all on different paths – one student is even graduating early. But most are about to enter their senior year of high school in the fall. Education reporter Elizabeth Miller has been following the class of 2025 for years, and she gives us a window into their lives.
OPB Class of 2025 podcast: https://www.opb.org/article/2020/11/30/listen-now-class-of-2025/
OPB Class of 2025 reporting: https://www.opb.org/specialreport/class-of-2025/
For more Evergreen episodes and to share your voice with us, visit our showpage.
Follow OPB on Instagram, and follow host Jenn Chávez too.
You can sign up for OPB’s newsletters to get what you need in your inbox regularly.
Don’t forget to check out our many podcasts, which can be found on any of your favorite podcast apps:
And many more! Check out our full show list here.
Remembering Rip City icon Bill Walton
NBA Hall-of-Famer, Portland Trail Blazers legend and Northwest icon Bill Walton died recently at the age of 71. He’s known as one of the most beloved Blazers of all time, credited with leading the team to its first NBA Championship in 1977. He’s also remembered as a freewheeling sportscaster, a devoted Deadhead, a young activist, a bike-lover and so much more. It’s clear from the many remembrances of him since his death how much he meant to fans across the basketball world, especially here in Oregon. We got together with two of OPB’s biggest Blazers fans, politics and government editor Andrew Theen and investigative editor and reporter Tony Schick, to share memories of Bill Walton and reflect on his legacy in Rip City and beyond.
For more Evergreen episodes and to share your voice with us, visit our showpage.
Follow OPB on Instagram, and follow host Jenn Chávez too.
You can sign up for OPB’s newsletters to get what you need in your inbox regularly.
Don’t forget to check out our many podcasts, which can be found on any of your favorite podcast apps:
And many more! Check out our full show list here.
At Portland’s largest outdoor homeless shelter, residents await their next step towards housing
The U.S. Supreme Court is currently considering a case out of Grants Pass that asks whether cities can punish people for living outdoors if there’s not enough shelter space for them to go to instead. Clinton Triangle, a large, low-barrier, outdoor shelter in Southeast Portland, is supposed to be the city’s model for how to serve chronically homeless Portlanders, and allow the city to enforce its camping ban policy. We visited the shelter with OPB’s Portland city government reporter Alex Zielinski, who shares the voices of people who’ve lived and worked there, and considers how the shelter’s approach has been working for residents trying to leave homelessness behind.
For more Evergreen episodes and to share your voice with us, visit our showpage.
Follow OPB on Instagram, and follow host Jenn Chávez too.
You can sign up for OPB’s newsletters to get what you need in your inbox regularly.
Don’t forget to check out our many podcasts, which can be found on any of your favorite podcast apps:
And many more! Check out our full show list here.
How homelessness in Grants Pass made it to the Supreme Court
A case currently before the U.S. Supreme Court centers around this question: can cities punish people for living outdoors if there’s no other place for them to go? The court’s ruling, which is expected as early as June, could change homelessness policy nationwide — and it all started in Grants Pass, Oregon.
Street Roots Newspaper reporter Jeremiah Hayden spent time in Grants Pass & covered oral arguments in Grants Pass v. Johnson in Washington, DC. He joins us to share some of the voices of Oregonians behind the legal case, and consider what the case could mean for cities in the Pacific Northwest and across the country.
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For more Evergreen episodes and to share your voice with us, visit our showpage.
Follow OPB on Instagram, and follow host Jenn Chávez too.
You can sign up for OPB’s newsletters to get what you need in your inbox regularly.
Don’t forget to check out our many podcasts, which can be found on any of your favorite podcast apps:
And many more! Check out our full show list here.
Remembering the Mount St Helens eruption and people who died on the mountain
Everyone who was in the Pacific Northwest on May 18, 1980 has some kind of story about the Mount Saint Helens eruption. OPB producer Ian McKluskey recently revisited that fateful day with some people who remember it very well for both personal and professional reasons. We talk with Ian about unearthing lost stories from Mount St Helens.
For more Evergreen episodes and to share your voice with us, visit our showpage.
Follow OPB on Instagram, and follow host Jenn Chávez too.
You can sign up for OPB’s newsletters to get what you need in your inbox regularly.
Don’t forget to check out our many podcasts, which can be found on any of your favorite podcast apps:
And many more! Check out our full show list here.
Eastern Oregon’s polluted drinking water
A water pollution crisis has been unfolding in Eastern Oregon for decades. Contamination of the Lower Umatilla Basin’s groundwater with excess nitrates — a naturally occurring chemical also found in fertilizer — has meant residents of Morrow and Umatilla Counties who get their water from private wells are struggling to access clean drinking water. Though the issue has been a known problem for over thirty years, nitrate pollution there is only getting worse, and some residents are still just learning about the risks to their health.
Monica Samayoa, OPB’s climate and environment reporter, and Antonio Sierra, OPB’s rural communities reporter, have been covering the area’s worsening nitrate pollution for years. They join us to talk about how we got here, what’s being done about it, and what locals without clean water still need.
For more Evergreen episodes and to share your voice with us, visit our showpage.
Follow OPB on Instagram, and follow host Jenn Chávez too.
You can sign up for OPB’s newsletters to get what you need in your inbox regularly.
Don’t forget to check out our many podcasts, which can be found on any of your favorite podcast apps:
And many more! Check out our full show list here.
Oregon Ballet Theatre artistic director brings unique experience to the job
Dani Rowe has been the artistic director for Oregon Ballet Theatre for a little over a year now. She is the first woman to be named permanent artistic director of the organization in its 35-year history. Rowe brings her experience as a dancer, a choreographer and a mother to bear in her new role. Oregon Art Beat producer Geneva Chin profiled Dani Rowe and brings us some insights.
For more Evergreen episodes and to share your voice with us, visit our showpage.
Follow OPB on Instagram, and follow host Jenn Chávez too.
You can sign up for OPB’s newsletters to get what you need in your inbox regularly.
Don’t forget to check out our many podcasts, which can be found on any of your favorite podcast apps:
And many more! Check out our full show list here.
Oregon Hops Changed IPAs … almost by accident
If you’re drinking a beer anywhere in the Pacific Northwest, chances are it’s an IPA. Whether you’re grabbing something from the cooler at your local convenience store or choosing a pint at a pub, you’re sure to find a wide selection of this hoppy, crisp style of beer. The letters stand for India Pale Ale, but the IPAs widely available today actually have a strong connection to Oregon. Author and journalist Jeff Alworth brings us the story of how a specific variety of hops grown by breeders in Oregon changed America’s beer scene almost by accident. Also, watch the Superabundant video about Pacific Northwest hops!
For more Evergreen episodes and to share your voice with us, visit our showpage.
Follow OPB on Instagram, and follow host Jenn Chávez too.
You can sign up for OPB’s newsletters to get what you need in your inbox regularly.
Don’t forget to check out our many podcasts, which can be found on any of your favorite podcast apps:
And many more! Check out our full show list here.
Childcare crisis pushes some Oregonians to the edge
You might have a lot of different ideas in your head about what could drive a family into homelessness, but one thing you might not think of: childcare.
On today’s episode, we’re talking about Oregon’s childcare crisis: how expensive it is for parents and guardians, how hard it can be to find and how providers are struggling with staffing shortages and limited space.
Featuring:
Natalie Pate, education reporter at OPB
For more Evergreen episodes and to share your voice with us, visit our showpage.
Follow OPB on Instagram, and follow host Jenn Chávez too.
You can sign up for OPB’s newsletters to get what you need in your inbox regularly.
Don’t forget to check out our many podcasts, which can be found on any of your favorite podcast apps:
And many more! Check out our full show list here.
Wherever the salmon can get to
You’ve probably heard about fish ladders and other mechanisms to help adult salmon get upstream past dams. It turns out that on the Willamette River, more than half of baby salmon die on their way downstream past the dams trying to get to the ocean. The US Army Corps of Engineers, the federal agency that operates the dams, has proposed building massive and costly fish collectors to try to save a fish population increasingly in danger of extinction. But reporting by OPB and Propublica casts doubt on the plan, as many outside the Corps consider the collectors unnecessary and unlikely to succeed.
We hear more from Tony Schick, OPB investigative reporter and editor, who reported on salmon and Willamette River dams in collaboration with Propublica, and produced the Salmon Wars podcast.
For more Evergreen episodes and to share your voice with us, visit our showpage.
Follow OPB on Instagram, and follow host Jenn Chávez too.
You can sign up for OPB’s newsletters to get what you need in your inbox regularly.
Don’t forget to check out our many podcasts, which can be found on any of your favorite podcast apps:
And many more! Check out our full show list here.