The Evergreen

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.

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:

Hush

Timber Wars Season 2: Salmon Wars

Politics Now

Think Out Loud

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

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.

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:

Hush

Timber Wars Season 2: Salmon Wars

Politics Now

Think Out Loud

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

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.

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:

Hush

Timber Wars Season 2: Salmon Wars

Politics Now

Think Out Loud

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

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.

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:

Hush

Timber Wars Season 2: Salmon Wars

Politics Now

Think Out Loud

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

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.

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.

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.

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:

Hush

Timber Wars Season 2: Salmon Wars

Politics Now

Think Out Loud

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

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. 

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:

Hush 

Timber Wars Season 2: Salmon Wars

Politics Now

Think Out Loud

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

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.

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:

Hush

Timber Wars Season 2: Salmon Wars

Politics Now

Think Out Loud

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

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.

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:

Hush

Timber Wars Season 2: Salmon Wars

Politics Now

Think Out Loud

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

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.

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:

Hush

Timber Wars Season 2: Salmon Wars

Politics Now

Think Out Loud

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