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People will go to great lengths in pursuit of wealth. Mountains will be literally moved in order to make them release the mineral bounty they contain. This is the drive that led to the creation of Monte Cristo, a mining town founded in the North Cascades back in the late 1800s. Today, Monte Cristo is a ghost town. Yet, it still has a hold on people like David Cameron. “It’s just a beautiful spot, and it kind of captures you. Sort of despite yourself. You cuss out the log that’s across the road

It wasn’t so long ago that, in order to buy groceries, most people would walk into a market, hand their list over to a man behind a counter, who would then go back into the store room and get everything for them. There were generally no prices listed -- it cost what it cost. You rarely got much say over what brand you got. That was the way it was, and it was hard to imagine it working any differently. But in the early 20th century, a man named Alvin Monson had a vision for a self-serve grocery

This week on Sound Effect, we share the stories that won national awards this year. Our first story, from Jennifer Wing, profiles a group of men that have been playing an elaborate game of tag for decades. Next, we’ll meet Sophie , a curly-haired six-year-old girl from Bellingham who was born a boy, and learn about new research from the University of Washington that suggests trans kids who are accepted by their parents tend to have positive mental health measures.

This story originally aired on July 30, 2016. When Jena Lopez’s child started showing signs of having a non-traditional gender identity during the preschool years, she wasn’t sure what to do. Can a 3- or 4-year-old really know that she’s a different gender from her biological sex? And Jena knew the outlook for transgender kids was grim: Research has shown they tend to have high rates of depression, anxiety and suicide. Still, the male-born child won over Jena and her husband, and now she is

This story originally aired on November 5, 2016. So when we get emotional about something, we often have to weigh the risks and rewards of acting on those emotions. If someone upsets us, we need to decide if there is enough of a reward in confronting that person, while potentially facing the risks of upsetting that person as well. I found myself in one of those situations at small-town bar in the middle of Washington, upset at a very, very famous young man, and wrote this essay. I feel like I

This story originally aired on February 13, 2016. In mid-December of 2006, a vicious wind storm hit Western Washington. Gale-force winds knocked out power, knocked down trees and knocked Charlene Strong onto a different life path. When Strong arrived home she found her wife, Kate, trapped inside the basement of their home. Water was rushing in, and as each moment passed, it seemed less and less likely that Kate would survive. Charlene Strong did lose her wife that night and then went on to

Filmmakers in the Pacific Northwest produced a wide range of notable films this year, from short documentaries on immigrant communities to feature-length Claymation. Courtney Sheehan is the Executive Director of the Northwest Film Forum. She joined us to talk about four of her favorites: We Could Have Been Street Kids , Constant Space* , Float, and Lane 1974. *Correction: The audio version of this story referred to the director of Constant Space as Emmett Stanfield. The name of the director is

This show originally aired on April 30, 2016. This week on Sound Effect we present stories of war and peace. Ground Zero Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor has what may be the highest concentration of nuclear warheads at a single site in the world, according to the Federation of American Scientists. And in neighboring Poulsbo, activists under the banner of “Ground Zero” don’t want you to forget it. Tom Rodgers is committed to direct action against the base, and guesses he’s been arrested four times in the

This story originally aired on April 30, 2016. Naval base Kitsap-Bangor, located on the Kitsap Peninsula is one of only two military bases in the United States that houses strategic nuclear weapon facilities. It's home to several Trident submarines, which are armed with nuclear weapons. The nuclear capabilities of these submarines have long made the naval base a focus of controversy and protest. Ground Zero , a group of non-violent protestors, emerged in opposition to the base the late 1970s.

This story originally aired on April 30, 2016. During World War II, in a frozen wilderness in southern Norway, on the edge of an icy cliff sat a hydroelectric plant called Vemork. This winter fortress was the center of some of the most important sabotage efforts of the war. That’s because besides electricity, the plant manufactured a rare substance Hitler needed for an atomic bomb: heavy water. The allies thought that if Hitler got his hands on this stuff, the Germans could win the war. So they