Mossback's Northwest

Long before the Grand Coulee Dam changed the Columbia River, lava, glaciers and epic floods radically reshaped its course. Geology professor Nick Zentner of Nick on the Rocks joins Mossback’s Northwest host Knute Berger to discuss a surprising phenomenon that altered the river ahead of the dam-builders.

In the early 20th century, a new breed of pioneers pushed into the Northwest wilderness with a newfangled invention: the automobile. One of those was the man who launched the Klondike gold rush, a millionaire named George Carmack.

The discovery of bones in the Columbia offered proof of the river’s ancient connections to Indigenous people, trade, and the movement of people. People thrived with salmon, declined with disease and the river was a gateway to colonization from settlers and emigrants. It has been a true lifeline for millennia.

Racism in the early outdoors movement — and among early 20th-century progressives — left a long-lasting imprint on Northwest wilderness recreation. Out & Back host Alison Mariella Désir and Mossback’s Northwest host Knute Berger look at the legacy of that phenomenon in light of new information after the airing of an episode that added to the story of an outdoor advocate.