At a live event, Knute Berger, Stephen Hegg and Nick Zentner discussed Mossback’s Northwest and the 10th season's focus on the Columbia River.

Mossback’s Northwest is still going strong, with its most recent season covering everything from the Columbia River to a history of racist exclusion in the outdoors.

In October, Cascade PBS put on a live event to celebrate 10 seasons of the beloved video series. Stephen Hegg, who’s produced past seasons of Mossback’s Northwest, interviewed host Knute Berger to give audience members a peek behind the scenes.

In this bonus episode of Mossback, Berger explains from the stage how the video series got its start, what it’s like to craft a season and the historical artifacts that bring Mossback’s Northwest to life.

Plus, the two were joined by special guest Nick Zentner of Nick on the Rocks, who made a guest appearance in the first episode of Season 10. Stay tuned for a deeper dive on everything Season 10 covers when the Mossback podcast drops new episodes in early 2025.

For more on all things Mossback, visit CascadePBS.org. To reach Knute Berger directly, drop him a line at knute.berger@cascadepbs.org. And if you’d like an exclusive weekly newsletter from Knute, where he offers greater insight into his latest historical discoveries, become a Cascade PBS member today.

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Credits

Hosts: Stephen Hegg and Knute Berger

Producer: Isaac Kaplan-Woolner

Story editor: Adam Brown

Adelaide Lowry Pollock was an educator, birder, author and believer in the power of civic participation at the turn of the 20th century.

In the early 1900s, pioneering educator Adelaide Lowry Pollock was the first woman to be named principal of a Seattle grade school. A lifelong love of birds dominated her curriculum. Her students went on birding field trips, mapped birds’ nests, researched bird behaviors, learned bird songs and even built elaborate birdhouses.

Ultimately, though, Pollock was interested in more than just the birds themselves. For her, studying birds was a way to encourage both environmental preservation and civic participation.

Cascade PBS’s resident historian Knute Berger profiled Pollock and her legacy 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 discuss how the seed for this story was planted by a single photograph; what those bird-centered classroom activities entailed; what the study of birds truly meant to Pollock; and the chapter of her life following her time in Seattle’s schools, which included teaching citizenship classes for soldiers overseas and attempting to improve the lives of both retired teachers and juvenile offenders. Plus, Berger and Hegg take a field trip to Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Queen Anne, one of the places Pollock’s students studied birds, to imagine what the place would have been like in Pollock’s day and do a little birdwatching themselves.

For more on all things Mossback, visit CascadePBS.org. To reach Knute Berger directly, drop him a line at knute.berger@cascadepbs.org. And if you’d like an exclusive weekly newsletter from Knute, where he offers greater insight into his latest historical discoveries, become a Cascade PBS member today.

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Credits

Hosts: Stephen Hegg, Knute Berger

Producer: Sara Bernard

Story editor: Sarah Menzies

Sitka trees were key military materiel in both World Wars. Knute Berger shares how the need for wood and the women who harvested it changed logging.

In the early 20th century, Sitka spruce, a giant conifer native to the Pacific Northwest, became known as an excellent material for building airplanes. As a result, when the U.S. entered World War I, the demand for that wood exploded.

The American military set up what was called the “Spruce Division” and brought in soldiers to Washington forests to help manage a growing industry. Over time, as the demand for spruce continued into World War II, women began to fill tens of thousands of timber jobs traditionally held by men.

Cascade PBS’s resident historian Knute Berger dug into these overlapping histories in a recent episode of the Mossback’s Northwest video series, but there is far more left to explore.

In this episode of Mossback, Berger joins co-host Stephen Hegg to discuss the unique characteristics of Sitka spruce and why the U.S. military was so interested in it; labor strife and the role of unions in the Northwest logging industry in the early 20th century; the entrance of female workers into the lumber camps and the rampant sexism they sometimes faced; and the larger impact that all of these forces had on the Pacific Northwest and its timber business.

For more on all things Mossback, visit CascadePBS.org. To reach Knute Berger directly, drop him a line at knute.berger@cascadepbs.org. And if you’d like an exclusive weekly newsletter from Knute, where he offers greater insight into his latest historical discoveries, become a Cascade PBS member today.

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Credits

Hosts: Stephen Hegg, Knute Berger

Producer: Sara Bernard

Story editor: Sarah Menzies