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.
Quiet can be an elusive thing, especially in an urban environment. Going out into nature is a good way to escape the sounds of the city, but trails are often full of people talking, dogs barking and you can still hear road noise from a lot of parks and hiking spots. Some people even feel the need to bring a Bluetooth speaker along with them when they’re out in nature. So how can you find a place that is truly quiet? And what would that be like? Ed Jahn is the executive producer of Oregon Field Guide and he recently went on a quest to find the quietest spot in all of Oregon. In this Evergreen episode, he takes us to that place.
You can see Ed’s video about the quietest place in Oregon here.
And if you want to hear about a spot in the Pacific Northwest that just might be the quietest place on earth, check out this episode of “The Wild” from our friends at the public radio station KUOW.
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You might encounter an ice sculpture of a swan at a fancy banquet, or an ice luge on a night out. But have you ever seen an 18-foot-tall punk baby with a mohawk made of ice? That’s one of the massive ice sculptures dreamt up by world-class ice carver Chris Foltz. Every winter, master sculptors from across the globe converge for the World Ice Art Championships in Fairbanks, where the temps are sub-zero, the ice blocks are sawed out of frozen ponds and the sculptures can weigh up to 20 tons. Foltz, a longtime chef who teaches ice sculpting to culinary students on the Oregon coast, has led teams to multiple world championships in Alaska.
“Oregon Field Guide” producer Noah Thomas followed Foltz and his team from Oregon to Fairbanks and joins us to share the thrills and chills of their quest for icy glory.
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Esta es la versión en español de este episodio del podcast. Click here to listen in English.
Los años 60s marcaron el comienzo del Movimiento Chicano denominado: El Movimiento.
Activistas como César Chávez y Dolores Huerta lideraban demostraciones, demandando derechos civiles y justicia social para la comunidad Mexicana Americana después de haber enfrentado décadas de discriminacion.
Y aquí mismo en Oregon, un grupo de Chicanos fundó una institución que cambiaría por genraciones el acceso a la educación para los latinos en la región del Noroeste Pacifico.
En el episodio de esta semana, la productora Alicia Avila comparte la história del Colegio César Chávez – la primera universidad Chicana acreditada e independiente de los Estados Unidos. Y como hasta el día de hoy continúa inspirando a la comunidad Latina en Oregon en su lucha contra la posibilidad de ser borrados.
Avila también produjo el documental sobre la historia del Colegio César Chávez para nuestro programa de OPB “Oregon Experience”
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This is the English version of this podcast episode. Haga clic aquí para escuchar en español.
The 1960s was the start of the Chicano movement: El Movimiento.
Activists like César Chávez and Dolores Huerta were on the front lines calling for civil rights and social justice for Mexican Americans after facing decades of discrimination.
And right here in Oregon, Chicanos founded an institution that would change education for Latinos across the Pacific Northwest for generations.
In this week’s episode, producer Alicia Avila shares the story of Colegio César Chávez – the first accredited, independent Chicano university in U.S. history, and how it continues to inspire as the Latino community in Oregon fights against its erasure.
Avila also produced a documentary about Colegio César Chávez for OPB's "Oregon Experience." Check it out.
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Photographer Esther Godoy identifies as butch or masculine-of-center. She grew up in Australia and came to Portland more than a decade ago. She says she saw a distinct difference in how her masculine way of presenting herself was received in Portland compared to her hometown in a suburb of Melbourne. She credits the queer community she found in Portland with helping her embrace her butch identity and serving as the inspiration for her multimedia project called “Butch Is Not A Dirty Word.”
OPB video producer Emily Hamilton went along on a recent photoshoot and joins us to talk about Godoy’s multifaceted embrace of the word “butch.”
You can see Emily’s video about Esther Godoy and her project here.
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For our latest “At Work With” episode, where we talk to Pacific Northwesterners with interesting 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 haunted house actor, a Zamboni driver and an outreach worker who helps homeless families access stable housing.
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.
For more Evergreen episodes and to share your voice with us, visit our showpage.
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If you listen to OPB on the radio, you’ve heard hosts and announcers say a long list of letters and places at the end of every hour. We’re required to do this by the Federal Communications Commission - but it also gave OPB Weekend Edition host Lillian Karabaic, who’s read this roll call of Oregon cities where OPB can be heard hundreds of times, a creative idea. She and OPB video producer Prakruti Bhatt decided to go on a madcap road trip to visit every single one… all by public transit.
This week, Lillian joins us to share what it was like making the 14-day journey on 38 buses to some of Oregon’s most remote places for OPB’s “Stop Requested” series. We’ll learn about the joys and challenges of rural public transit, and meet some of the friendly folks who ride it.
And if today’s episode leaves you wanting to learn more about rural transit in Oregon, great news: Lillian will be hosting a Stop Requested Live event at Portland State University in May. Registration opens soon. Find more details on OPB’s “Stop Requested” page or on OPB’s events page.
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It’s pretty common to see people including their dogs in outdoor recreation activities, but a cat? That’s a different story. Oregon Field Guide producer Noah Thomas recently met some cats who go with their people on all kinds of adventures in the great outdoors. He joins us to share their stories, and we hear from some Evergreen listeners with adventurous cats.
You can see the Oregon Field Guide video of adventure cats here and explore more of Oregon and Washington through Oregon Field Guide’s full episodes here.
For more Evergreen episodes and to share your voice with us, visit our showpage.
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Almost every day, new articles are being posted to the website of the Southern Oregon newspaper Ashland Daily Tidings, founded in 1876. At least… that’s what it looks like. But here’s the thing: the newspaper closed down two years ago.
So what’s the deal with dailytidings.com? Why do all the articles posted there seem vaguely… familiar? And who are the reporters the website claims is writing them?
OPB managing news editor Ryan Haas has been trying to find out, and stumbled upon something unexpected. At the center of it all is artificial intelligence, and the hope that Ashland readers who once trusted the newspaper won’t notice the difference.
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You’ve probably heard of famous Northwest volcanoes like Mt. St. Helens or Mt. Hood. But did you know the region’s most active volcano is at the bottom of the ocean, three hundred miles off the Oregon coast?
Scientists have been studying the Axial Seamount for decades. They predict it’ll erupt again in 2025.
OPB’s science and environment reporter Jes Burns joins us to share her at-sea adventures with scientists studying the volcano.
For more cool PNW science from Jes Burns, check out OPB’s “All Science. No Fiction.”
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If you live in the Pacific Northwest, you’ve probably heard a lot about salmon — how important they are to this region, and how much trouble they’re in now. But the history lessons many of us have learned are not the whole story. Tony Schick is an investigative reporter for OPB and ProPublica. He’s done a lot of work to uncover and understand a far more sinister version of events. Along the way, he connected with Indigenous local Randy Settler and his family.
We’re sharing an episode from another OPB podcast: “Salmon Wars.” It tells the story of salmon in the Northwest in a way you haven’t heard before – through the voices of one Yakama Nation family who have been fighting for salmon for generations.
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We’ve come a long way since launching The Evergreen in February 2024, when we set out to make a weekly podcast for OPB about the beautiful and complex place we call home: the Pacific Northwest.
As the year comes to a close, we’re listening back to our very first episode! It’s a reflection on the idea of home itself. What makes where you live your home? What is it that makes us feel at home here? Is it a place, a person, a memory, a sound, even a smell? And what does “at home” even mean? We explore answers to these questions with our friends at OPB and in our audience.
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OPB’s partner station, KMHD Jazz Radio, has been celebrating its 40th birthday this year. So we’re using the milestone of this anniversary to look back at Portland’s birth and evolution as a jazz town.
When you think of jazz, perhaps its birthplace, New Orleans, or New York City first come to mind. But Portland’s been attracting jazz stars and fostering local jazz talent for practically a century, and is home today to a vibrant local scene that’s expanded beyond the boundaries of traditional jazz.
We explore the history of the genre’s golden era in Portland, when the jazz scene thrived on North Williams Avenue in the city’s Albina neighborhood. Albina’s music scene later evolved to include soul, funk and R&B in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Many Black-owned jazz and soul clubs in Albina didn’t outlast destructive “urban renewal” projects that hit the historically Black neighborhood hard. But continued investment in the jazz scene by local musicians like Mel Brown has helped rebuild it to what it is now.
We also hear from beloved longtime KMHD DJ and host, Ted Smith, also known to listeners as “The Baby Boomer,” about the station’s ethos of “jazz without boundaries,” what he hopes to provide to listeners of his show, “The Soulful Strut,” and what he sees in Portland’s jazz scene today.
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Oregon law allows psilocybin therapy in licensed service centers. But what if you’re too sick to go to one? Could a licensed psilocybin facilitator come to your home and provide therapeutic services for you there? Oregon law says no. But a group of facilitators are now fighting to change that. Science journalist Jane C. Hu has been following an effort by four licensed facilitators to expand access to psilocybin therapy in Oregon and she brings us more details about this fascinating story.
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The town of Enterprise, nestled in the northeastern corner of Oregon, has a population of about 2000 people and it’s pretty isolated. (You have to go 60 miles to get to the nearest traffic light.) Ten years ago, Darrell and Christi Brann bought the 100-year-old OK Theatre in Enterprise and began reimagining it as a live music venue. Now, they’re able to attract world-class talent as well as local up-and-comers to this historic theater. OPB’s Oregon Art Beat producer Kate McMahon fills us in on her trip to Enterprise and how she built trust with the Branns and their community.
You can read more and see the Oregon Art Beat video about the OK Theatre here.
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Central Oregon’s High Desert Museum’s exhibit called “Sensing Sasquatch” is interactive and multidimensional. It includes larger-than-life installations, a soundscape that evokes both the natural world and supernatural elements, and artwork that visitors are encouraged to touch and smell. The exhibit showcases Native American interpretations of the being known as Sasquatch, Bigfoot or “the big guy.” We hear from three of the artists: Charlene Moody, Frank Buffalo Hyde and Philip Cash Cash, who also co-curated the exhibit.
You can see the Oregon Art Beat video of Charlene Moody working on her installation for “Sensing Sasquatch” here and listen to an interview with Philip Cash Cash and Frank Buffalo Hyde about their work for the exhibit here.
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Oregon’s old forests keep getting cut down, despite Biden’s promise to protect them
Episode description:
On Earth Day in 2022, President Joe Biden signed an executive order to protect mature and old growth forests on federal lands.
But over two years later, these forests were still being cut under the Biden administration's watch. Nearly the same amount as they were under Trump — who will take office again next year and could undo some of his predecessor's climate policies.
Today, we’re talking about how logging has continued in western Oregon — the heart of the nation’s remaining old-growth forests. OPB’s April Ehrlich and ProPublica’s McKenzie Funk investigated and followed the course of one controversial timber sale in Southern Oregon.
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They say a picture is worth a thousand words. And that’s never been more true than in our fractured-attention-span, doom-scrolling age. People can process an image in as little as 13 milliseconds — and that often means deciding whether to read the story below that image - or not - exactly that quickly.
So the choices journalists make about what image to put with a story really matter. But they can also be super complicated.
OPB’s Photo Editor Kristyna Wentz-Graff sat down with us to talk about the decisions she makes when making photographs and choosing which images will accompany stories. We talked about covering elections, protests, homelessness and more … all while remaining centered on the fundamental humanity of her subjects.
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This election season, we’re looking back at the fight for women’s suffrage. When Oregon became a state, only white men could vote. Women worked for more than four decades to get men to vote for their rights. Racism hampered the movement, as many white women didn’t want to work with women of color in their activism. Black women formed their own groups and pushed hard for ballot access. Only then did the movement have enough momentum to succeed. Oregon women won the right to vote in 1912, eight years before women’s suffrage became a national law. Many barriers kept women of color from voting until the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Nearly 80 years after women won the right to vote in Oregon, the state finally elected its first female governor, Barbara Roberts. In 2022, the three major candidates for Oregon governor were all women.
You can see the Oregon Experience documentary about women’s suffrage in Oregon here.
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It’s been a little over a month since Oregon officially ended its experiment with drug decriminalization. Now, there’s a new set of experiments going on around the state. When people are caught with small amounts of illegal drugs, the consequences depend on a variety of factors, including what county they happen to be in. Some counties have gone back to charging people who are caught with small amounts of illegal drugs, while others are trying to connect people with treatment in lieu of an arrest. OPB criminal justice and legal affairs reporter Conrad Wilson and OPB public safety reporter Troy Brynelson each visited different counties to see what drug recriminalization looks like on the ground. They share some of their findings with us.
You can read and listen to OPB’s ongoing coverage of drug recriminalization here.
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This week, we’re talking all about Oregon’s award-winning animation scene. Just think of Coraline, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio and Will Vinton Studio’s California Raisins ad from 1986.
OPB’s Oregon Art Beat producer Eric Slade helped make a documentary about that state’s animation industry, and he’s here to break down how creators have established the state as a reigning animation powerhouse that’s influencing the art form’s legacy and future.
Watch more episodes of Oregon Art Beat at their show page.
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When President Jimmy Carter traveled, he sometimes stayed in people’s homes. This started as a way to save money when he was running for Georgia governor, but he continued these home visits even after being elected to America’s highest office. He stayed with at least eight different families around the country, one of which was in Oregon. Producer Nora Colie was six years old when President Carter came to stay with her neighbors, the Olson family. She recently revisited their memories, and her own, in honor of Carter’s 100th birthday.
You can read more and see the Oregon Experience video Nora Colie produced here.
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For our latest “At Work With” episode, where we talk to 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 burlesque performer, private investigator and Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA).
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.
For more Evergreen episodes and to share your voice with us, visit our showpage.
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For some 30 years in the early 20th century, Oregonian Jean Birnie led a trailblazing group of horsewomen called the Hen Party on annual horse packing trips in northeastern Oregon’s Wallowa Mountains. Inspired by their legacy, a group of Hen Party descendents retraced the steps of their foremothers on an adventure into the Wallowas of their own, almost a century later.
OPB “Oregon Field Guide” producer Jule Gilfillan went along to document their journey. She joins us to share the family story of the Hen Party, and how, in the Oregon wilderness, its members found friendship, empowerment, solace and more.
Find more “Oregon Field Guide” stories about the natural wonders of the Pacific Northwest here.
For more Evergreen episodes and to share your voice with us, visit our showpage.
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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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Don’t forget to check out our many podcasts, which can be found on any of your favorite podcast apps:
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