Culture
Everything about the Pacific Northwest is on display at the new Burke Museum. Even the scientists.
The museum's new home brings its researchers out of the basement, and delivers a love letter of fossils and artifacts to our region.
Knute Berger
Knute “Mossback” Berger is an editor-at-large and host of "Mossback’s Northwest" at Cascade PBS. He writes about politics and regional heritage.
Latest work
Focus
Finding hints of our future in the epic blazes of the Northwest's past
A visit to the site of the Norse Peak fire — the worst in Western Washington since the Yacolt Burn of 1902 — reveals both the promise and limits of human forest management.
Focus
Wildfires are burned into Washington's history — and our headlines
We might think of smoky summers as a new plague. But for centuries, wildfire smoke has been confounding Northwesterners, blocking sunsets and even sinking ships.
Focus
How Washington's 'summer of fire' nearly destroyed Seattle, Spokane and Ellensburg
On the cusp of becoming a state, the Washington territory suffered three major fires that would change the course of history.
Culture
How Washington’s most infamous bridge failure helped engineers prevent more
On this episode of Mossback's Northwest, Knute Berger looks back at what Puget Sound learned from the Tacoma Narrows bridge disaster.