The 12th season of The Modern West podcast drops on June 3. Wyoming Public Radio’s Melodie Edwards reports and produces the show. She shared this sneak peek.
Nicky Ouellet: Season 12 of the Modern West is called “Mountain Migrations.” Tell me the story behind the name.
Melodie Edwards: All of the episodes this season are loosely related to how Westerners are always on the move. It’s a defining characteristic.
It started with our Indigenous residents who lived in the Rocky Mountains before colonization. Most were nomadic, moving from mountains to plains seasonally in search of resources. Then came European settlers and waves of domestic and international migrants that continue to this day.
One of the episodes this season is an interview with author Megan Kate Nelson. She’s a Pulitzer finalist who recently wrote the book, “The Westerners: Mythmaking and Belonging on the American Frontier.” She explained the phenomena best.
Megan Kate Nelson: Westerners are always moving around. And even when they settle, quote unquote, their lives are still kind of shaped and designed around movement.
ME: Nelson’s book opens with a map showing the journeys of seven well known and not-so-wellknown Westerners including Sacajawea, Cattle Kate and Jim Beckwourth as they zigzagged all over the United States.
NO: Cattle Kate! Wasn’t she wrongly accused and hanged for cattle rustling?
ME: Yeah, very interesting character.
Then we have an episode about grizzly bears and the expansion of their ranges. And another telling the story of the Rock Springs Massacre, which was a clash of cultural migrations that hit home in one mining community.
And we have a couple of love stories! What I noticed was that what made love stories unique in the American West is that they are often extra romantic and heart-wrenching due to all the moving around the lovers are forced into.
NO: Melodie, you’re kidding me – you’ve got love stories this season? Spill the tea!
ME: Yes! In fact, I interviewed the winners of the America’s Favorite Couple award, Jenny and Brian Drollinger, who live in Wyoming’s Star Valley these days. Their story takes them to every nook of the American West. But they actually met in high school in Alaska.
Their story is a real life ’80s rom-com, I’m not exaggerating. All the miscommunications and near misses and twists of fate, it’s all packed into their story. Like the time Jenny went to a high school dance expecting to slow dance all night with Brian. But instead, he hung out with another girl. So she hung out with another guy.
Jenny Drollinger: Clayton leans in for a kiss, and I'm like, ‘No, no.’ And I look the other direction and in the backseat, there's Brian and Star next to me, making out right in front of me, and I am just like, I can't look over this way because Clayton will kiss me. I'm looking this way, and they're kissing, and I'm looking up at the ceiling like, ‘Oh my gosh, where do I put my eyes?’ I'm just like, I have to survive this night.
NO: I can’t believe it, on both sides. I hope there’s a happy ending. But don’t tell me. I want to hear the episode.
This season has a lot of stories about humans migrating. But they’re not the only ones that move around the American West. Tell me more about the grizzly episode.
ME: That one was produced by our own Hanna Merzbach. She traveled all around Wyoming and Montana learning more about how grizzlies are moving into new regions and how that’s leading to conflicts with people who are also expanding their ranges. But folks are also learning to adapt to living close to grizzlies. She visits a rancher who’s using radio collars on his cattle to reduce the likelihood they’ll get eaten by a bear.
Ben Anson: I was seeing, you know, 12 individual bears in a year, and then 16 and then 20. And finally, within like probably the last three years, I can't really even keep track of the individual bears that I see in a year.
ME: Plus, she picks apples on the Flathead Reservation to reduce food rewards. She goes toe-to-toe with a robo bear to see if she’s prepared to encounter one in the wild. It’s an action packed episode.
NO: This last year, we covered the 140th anniversary of the Rock Springs Massacre. You have an episode that brings together all that reporting as well.
ME: That was reporter Jenna McMurtry from KHOL in Jackson. In the podcast episode, she recreates the story of the attack using an epic poem [“Bitter Creek”] written by poet Teow Lim Goh, describing how white miners killed 28 Chinese miners in 1885. Jenna visits the archaeological site where they’re unearthing the remnants of the massacre.
Dudley Garner: This is where Chinatown was. It was built here in 1874, and then burned to the ground on September 2, 1885.
NO: When can people start listening to “Mountain Migrations?”
ME: Hanna’s grizzly bear episode comes out on June 3. We’ll release episodes every other week after that. You can listen on the Wyoming Public Media website by clicking on the podcast tab. Or you can also download them on your favorite podcast app.
