www.atom509.wordpress.com I have a few quick disclaimers before I start this episode: PNWcast is a region specific podcast covering history and culture in the Pacific Northwest. The story I'm bringing you today is technically political and current, so it's a little different, but I think it's relevant. To be clear, this episode is in no way making a political statement or telling you who to vote for, but strongly encourages you vote and have open conversations about this year's election. Also, the scene this story draws from is in Spokane, Washington which is technically the inland northwest. I've already received emails correcting me geographically when it comes to what's included in the Pacific Northwest, so if you were about to shoot over another email, you don't have to, we're good. Also, this episode includes some pretty heavy material that might be triggers for some people along with brief uncensored language and strong derogatory phrases. In this election we have Kasich, Cruz and Trump running for the Republican nomination and Hilary Clinton and Bernie Sanders for the Democratic. The presidential hopefuls have been making their rounds around the country, stopping in most large cities holding these rallies where supporters can get together and hear the candidate speak. The democratic hopeful Bernie Sanders made his stops through Washington last week and I wanted to see what he was about so I attended the Rally in Spokane, Washington....along with 10,000 other people. The scene was unreal. Bernie Sanders was scheduled to speak at 9pm, but the people at the front of the line showed up at 7am. I showed up at around 4pm and had to walk down the line through riverfront park a little over half a mile. Eventually the line would be close to a mile long. There was this energetic vibe through the whole park, there were performers, there were cheers and singing, there was music, and everyone felt something, like something big. Among the 10,000 attendees, was this guy. His name is Adam Gregory, he's a photographer in spokane. He went down to the Bernie Rally to take some pictures and witness the spectacle. He had no idea that he about to capture some of the most real and raw photos of his career.

UTOPIA is a Greek word for an imaginary place where everyone and everything is perfect. In the early 1890’s, this was an attractive society in America and resulted in the creation of model communities within the greater society and there were a lot of Utopian Experiments. One of the more interesting ones, was started in the Pacific Northwest. Three men, George Allen, Oliver Verity and B.F. O’Dell founded their own utopian dream in Washington State after being a part of a previous attempt of a utopian society. They left Glennis, Washington and bought some land off of the Key Peninsula and founded a society with absolute freedom and rejection of their contemporary values. In 1896, the utopia called Home, Washington was born and became known as an anarchist city. Home started out with the three founders and grew into a group of over 600 at one point. After seeing the growth of Home and seeing what they had gone through as a community it seems like you would be able to call it a successful experiment. However a well-known sociologist Rosabeth Kanter argued in her 1972 book, Commitment & Community: Communes and Utopias in Sociological Perspective, she argued that the internal characteristics of a utopian community lead to its success or failure. Kanter defined a “successful” commune as one that lasted for longer than thirty-three years. There a a few stories that make Home, washington stand out from other utopian experiments during that time. For example, Home gained the attention of it’s neighboring large cities in 1901. Not in a good way though. Going back to Rosabeth Kanter’s keys for a successful utopia, she said the generation had to be passed on, and last at least 33 years. Another story I like to come out of this Anarchist Utopia is the story of Donald Vose. Most people have never heard of Home, Washington or the stories that stemmed from there, at the time he wrote his book, there were only three other recorded accounts to help research Home. The normal way my interviews with authors tend to go, I find interesting stories about the research DURING the writing of the book, but in this case, Justin had connections AFTER the book was published that add to the overall experience of the history.

There was a forest in Port Clements on the Queen Charlotte Islands off the Beautiful British Columbia shoreline. This forest was home to the only Giant Golden Spruce in the world. This tree was sacred to the natives and it was the source of many myths and stories. The locals on the island embraced the tree and it brought tourists from all over. It was even part of the town’s logo. Walking through the forest by the Yakoun River you would be surrounded by green sitka spruce trees all around you, with just one towering above the rest that, because of a rare mutation was glowing a bright gold. As if each branch were a string of holiday lights. People who have seen it have called it a real life fairy tale tree. This is the story of the man who cut that tree to the ground and has been missing for almost 20 years. His name is Grant Hadwin. If you get lost in the comment sections of some of the articles written about Grant Hadwin, you’ll see people refer to him as eccentric. An unstable, loud, drunk. An unemployed loser. An asshole. However, there’s a side to each story. Looking at Grant, you would see a tall, fit, chiseled man who came from an educated family in West Vancouver. A man that has outran grizzly bears, gone swimming in thirty five degrees below zero weather, he even once disappeared without telling anybody Now, just to be clear, it's not like Hadwin just lost his cool one day and arbitrarily cut this tree down. He spent a long time writing letters and appealing to every public outlet, government agency, he contacted everyone up certain chain of commands that he could. He wrote to the Vancouver Sun to try and create awareness, Greenpeace to ask for help, even the police. Ultimately, after his letters went nowhere, falling on deaf ears. On January 20th 1997, Grant Hadwin swam across a river with a chainsaw, walked up to the Golden Spruce and fell the revered tree. This act left the entire local community stunned. There was outrage, threats, tears and Grant was arrested at first. Hadwin was given a court date to plead his defense on February 18th 1997 in Masset, British Columbia. There were rumors going around that he wouldn't live to see his hearing, that some people wanted him dead. Because of that, he told acquaintances that he didn't feel safe riding the ferry to Masset and he wanted to take his kayak. After he left Port Clements in his boat heading north up the inlet, he was never seen again. In June 1997, the wreckage of Hadwin's kayak was found on Mary Island, 70 miles northwest of Prince Rupert. Because Hadwin was known to be an expert in wilderness survival, some believe that he faked his own death and vanished into the wilderness. His ultimate fate is unknown. Grant Hadwin's case is still considered open, and people still have very strong feelings about what he did 20 years ago in one way or another. What do you guys think? Can we justify Grant's actions or is what he did worthy of punishment and hatred? Let me know what you think.

This whole adventure started when one man saw a stranger dumping boxes of wedding gowns, ball gowns, and bridesmaid dresses into a dumpster. He took the dresses and being a photographer, started taking incredible landscape shots with himself as the subject wearing these dresses. The pictures were a big hit and people started sharing them on Facebook, and buying prints of the shots. The Facebook page he made for his photography had a good number of followers, people liked this art, a dude in a wedding dress. He decided to use that base as a platform, seemingly out of nowhere thought to hike the Pacific Crest Trail and he told his followers, "I’ll do it in these wedding dresses." People loved it, they supported the trip and even donated some dresses for him to wear, in one case a $3,000 used Vera Wang. He set out with 26 dresses and planned to wear each one throughout the 2600 mile walk. This is the story of a man that goes by the name of Train.

When I first got my dog, a little Australian Shepherd/heeler that I named Lando, we took a road trip through washington and stopped at Alki Beach in Seattle. It’s one of my favorite places to visit. It’s the westernmost point in the West Seattle district, surrounded by the Puget Sound. Lando would tease himself with the shoreline of the Puget, slowly putting a paw in the water and then running as fast as he can 10 yards backwards. He kept on doing that over and over, until he crept slowly to the edge to test the water again when a small wave came in covering his whole body, drenching him and taking him for what I consider his first surfing trip, riding a little wave. He was a pretty timid pup so I was worried about how he would handle it, but once he got back to the shore though, he looked at me, as if he was checking in with me to see if he was okay…and then he dove right back into the next wave. I’ve told that story to a lot of people and it’s usually followed with one of their great memories that they created at Alki Beach as well. It’s a very special place. It’s also where the first recorded Pacific Northwest Christmas took place.

in 1963, over $160,000 worth of ore—easily half a million dollars in today’s currency—was stolen from under the nose of one of the largest mining companies in Canada in a massive Yukon silver heist. the the would lead to a costly year-long investigation by the rcmp, and a series of expensive trials of record-breaking length for the territory. This is the story of Gerald Priest and The Great Yukon Silver Ore Heist and the incredible woman who recorded it.

Natasha Geiling is a journalist for Think Progress and writes at @ngeiling. Her Smithsonian Magazine article for this story can be found here: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next=/history/vanport-oregon-how-countrys-largest-housing-project-vanished-day-180954040/ Henry Kaiser was a successful industrialist in the early 1900’s, he starting building shipyards on the Columbia right outside of Portland in 1941 when America became a part of World War 2. Because of the war, Kaiser had to build more ships, so he built more shipyards, and he needed workers for these shipyards so he offered big pay and recruited men from all over the country. Within a year, almost 100,000 men and their families had moved to Portland to work on these shipyards but there weren’t enough places for the new residents. So, Kaiser goes to the local housing authority and says, “hey, cities with booming industries all over the country are building public temporary housing for all the workers, we should have some in portland” But, The Housing authority didn’t like the idea of public housing mixing with private interests but moreover, it came down to race. The real estates code of ethics restricted african americans to a tiny little town called Albina. By 1940 1,100 of Portland’s 1,900 black residents lived in Albina. And that’s about all the city could hold, it was maybe 2 miles long and a mile wide, it couldn’t handle this many new workers. So Kaiser took matters into his own hands. He bought what could basically be referred to as a marsh right outside of city limits. It was physically disconnected from land in-between the Columbia Slough and the Columbia River. The land only stayed dry by building these 15-25 foot dikes all around the area. He called this new city, Vanport. Because it was between Vancouver and Portland. In about 100 days, Vanport had over 10,000 homes and apartments and at it’s peak, housed over 40,000 people.

The old staircase is called The Thousand Steps, even though there are only about 60. It gets that name apparently because it feels like it takes forever to walk up the stairs, as if there were a thousand of them. People have told stories of hearing voices, seeing shadows, feeling a presence or some spirit around them as they're walking up, as if trying to keep them from getting to the top, others have gotten to the top of the stairs only to notice bruises and cuts on their arms and legs. There's one story from 2004; a man claimed about halfway up the staircase he felt a sudden blow to his chest, knocking his down the stairs and sending him to hospital with several broken ribs. They say this staircase is haunted by the man who designed it. He was the first banker and second mayor of Spokane, Wa. His name is Anthony Cannon, once known as The Father of Spokane and he's buried at the top of that staircase. Here's some backstory before we get to the cemetery. Anthony Cannon came from Portland, Oregon with his friend JJ Browne. They showed up in style, riding into town on horseback in 1878 and starting buying alot of land, like...all of the land. Current day, residents are familiar with Cannon's addition and Browne's Addition respectively. But they owned much more than that. He started Spokane's first bank, was a real estate tycoon, started a newspaper, a sawmill, a cracker company, served on city council and eventually was elected mayor and had plans to build a railroad that was to be bigger than the Northern Pacific. But we'll get to that. 3 months after moving to spokane, Anthony Cannon married a woman name Jennie Pease, a very social, popular woman in the community and they became a power couple in the area. They would throw incredible parties, they were both well liked and were living a dreamlike, lavish life. Anthony kept contributing to the growth of the city peaking with the construction of Spokane's Opera House. That's when things started to go downhill. And fast. The City of Spokane suffered an enormous fire in 1889 just 10 years after Cannon moved to the area. The fire destroyed many of his buildings, land and property, including the bank and the opera house. Anthony mortgaged off everything else he owned to help get him back on his feet and that could have worked except, four years later, a serious economic depression known as the Panic of 1893 hit hard. He turned the land he had for his attempt at the Northwest's largest railroad into a cemetery. Cannon lost everything. And I mean everything...later that same year Jennie died from an illness suffered after she underwent an undefined operation. Being seemingly overwhelmed and depressed, Cannon left for Helena, Montana and three weeks after losing his wife. He married again. This time to a much younger woman who he apparently had already had relations with. They tried to keep the marriage a secret so it wouldn't seem scandalous, but word got out and back to everyone in Spokane. People were shocked, disgusted and appalled. Many of his old business partners and friends made it clear that Anthony would not be welcome back to Spokane. He had been ostracized. He made a venture to South America to a small city and tried to have the same success he found in Spokane. After failing there, he just traveled around without much hope of regaining his status. He was in New York for a business meeting on April 6th 1895, that night he died in his hotel room. The autopsy didn't suspect foul play and he had been in poor health for years, but suicide wasn't ruled out. At 57 years old, he was alone, penniless and miserable. At the request of his family, his body was transported by a train via the Northern Pacific Railway to be buried at Cannon's cemetery, at the top of a large staircase.

When it comes to the mountains, Zach and Bryson know their stuff. As guides on Mt. Rainier and strong rock climbers, they've seen and experienced more than most. But late August 2012 on Mt. Stuart...

Sometimes it's the strange, unconventional people that have the most impact. This is the story of Amor De Cosmos. His accolades are impressive and has all of the qualifications to be considered one of Canada's Fathers of Confederation, but he's not. Here's why. On the show today, Anthony Wilson-Smith from Historica Canada. https://www.historicacanada.ca