The Evergreen

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.

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:

Timber Wars Season 2: Salmon Wars

Politics Now

Think Out Loud

And many more! Check out our full show list here.

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:

Timber Wars Season 2: Salmon Wars

Politics Now

Think Out Loud

And many more! Check out our full show list here.

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:

Timber Wars Season 2: Salmon Wars

Politics Now

Think Out Loud

And many more! Check out our full show list here.

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:

Timber Wars Season 2: Salmon Wars

Politics Now

Think Out Loud

And many more! Check out our full show list here.

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.

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:

Timber Wars Season 2: Salmon Wars

Politics Now

Think Out Loud

And many more! Check out our full show list here.

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:

Timber Wars Season 2: Salmon Wars

Politics Now

Think Out Loud

And many more! Check out our full show list here.

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:

Timber Wars Season 2: Salmon Wars

Politics Now

Think Out Loud

And many more! Check out our full show list here.

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:

Timber Wars Season 2: Salmon Wars

Politics Now

Think Out Loud

And many more! Check out our full show list here.

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:

Timber Wars Season 2: Salmon Wars

Politics Now

Think Out Loud

And many more! Check out our full show list here.

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:

Timber Wars Season 2: Salmon Wars

Politics Now

Think Out Loud

And many more! Check out our full show list here.