Curious Northwest
Latest Stories

Curious Northwest
Fort Vancouver offers sword fighting classes, minus real duels
This fall, Fort Vancouver National Historic Site is offering classes for those interested in the clash of steel.
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A Coos Bay chef and his student carve award-winning sculptures out of car-sized blocks of ice
Coos Bay culinary instructor Chris Foltz and his student, Nick Graham, turn giant pieces of ice into detailed works of art.

Culture
First known recording of Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” is from Portland’s Reed College
Beat poet Allen Ginsberg first read his famous poem "Howl" in 1955 in San Francisco, but he was first recorded reading it on Valentine's Day 1956 in a dorm hall at Portland's Reed College. The recording was discovered in a box at Reed in 2007, and now it's been restored and released by Omnivore Recordings.
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Curious Northwest
Recovering a forgotten piece of Portland’s baseball history, the Rosebuds
This summer, Portland's Wild Wild West League is resurrecting the 'Rosebuds' team name in honor of the 1946 Portland Rosebuds, Portland's first and only all-Black, Negro League baseball team. The '46 Rosebuds were owned by track and field speedster Jesse Owens, the four-time gold medalist who stunned the world at the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin.
Curious Northwest
The hunt for the Santa Clones is on
The Santa Clones, a collection of vintage illuminated yard Santas, have become a Portland holiday tradition.
Curious Northwest
Dark myths, and a sometimes darker historical past, haunt Oregon’s waterfronts
Portland's early waterfront has become the center for legendary stories of an illicit past. Some of those stories are even true.
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Curious Northwest
From Evel Knievel to ‘The Flying Angel’: Why Oregon beckoned daredevils
In the 1970s, Oregon’s desert playas and vast canyons played host to daredevils near and far. Fearless thrill-seekers came to the state to make daring land speed attempts and perform outrageous stunts.
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Oregon set the stage for modern presidential debates
In 1948, Portland hosted the United States’ first-ever nationally broadcast presidential debate. The face-off, between two candidates competing for the Republican nomination, is widely seen as the precedent for today’s debates.
Curious Northwest
How Oregon’s GOP governor teamed up with hippies to throw a festival and prevent clashes in the streets
In August of 1970, at the height of the Vietnam War, President Richard Nixon was slated to come to Portland, and so were thousands of antiwar protesters. That's when some young liberal Oregonians teamed up with Republican Gov. Tom McCall on a plan to lure thousands of potential antiwar demonstrators into the woods for a weekend of rock 'n' roll and avoid a projected violent clash in the City of Roses. This is the story of Oregon Vortex 1: A Biodegradable Festival of Life.
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How Oregon named a county after a Confederate sympathizer
Efforts to rename institutions with racist underpinnings such as schools, military bases and sports teams are happening across the country. In Oregon, there’s a movement to change the name of Lane County, which is dedicated to Joseph Lane, the first governor of the Oregon Territory.