The River in Sound & Image
A collection of video and audio recordings capturing life along America’s waterways. Watch, listen, and explore the voices, landscapes, and histories that shape river communities. Browse the latest from our archives—moments of conversation, soundscapes of river life, and stories told in the voices of those who live them.
Recent Video
Stories from the river in moving pictures
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A Totally Reasonable and Not At All Overdramatic Fix
There are plenty of important things to do to get the shantyboat ready for the river. But today? Today is about comfort. Specifically, preventing the captain from thrashing their hand on jagged metal one more time. So instead of working on, say, navigation or rigging, we’ve formed a shantyboat sewing circle, painstakingly whip-stitching 320 feet…
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Rebooting the River
Unveiling our completely rebuilt website—a fresh digital home for river stories, oral histories, and shantyboat adventures. It’s faster, cleaner, and born from countless hours of deep work. Witness the transformation as you explore interactive interviews, videos, and maps that bring decades of river life to light. Dive in at peoplesriverhistory.org. Join us on this incredible…
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We Violated the One Cardinal Rule of Boats
We moved everything not nailed down out of the shantyboat, derattified, scrubbed, laundered, and hosed down every inch we could reach—including the bilges. Yes, we put water inside the boat on purpose. Dotty is now cleaner than she’s been in more than ten years… well, except for the places we can’t reach.
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Cleaning Tasks
What wonders to behold in our cabinet of curiosities?. . . Answer: Mostly rusty cans, cheap beer, and rat poop. Now empty shelves and a daunting cleaning task.
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Delta Films, Second Line, and Squirrel Gumbo
Once a week we gather at Secret History HQ for the Delta Film Series—a deep dive into the culture, history, and tangled realities of the Louisiana Delta. These films aren’t just movies; they’re waypoints on the journey ahead. This week, we enjoyed a doc about young musicians finding resilience and rhythm in the streets of…
Recent Audio
Recordings and soundscapes from the river’s edge
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Songs Drifting From a Shantyboat – a Playlist
Music drifts across the water on warm summer evenings, mingling with the lapping of waves and the hum of distant voices. These songs echo the slow rhythms of river life—familiar tunes carried along the current, playing from a shantyboat radio or a dockside porch.
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That Was Weird: Rediscovering The River
Join Archives & Collections Catalyst, Marla Novo, and Abbott Square Music Coordinator, Gabriel Kittle-Cervine, for ‘That Was Weird: Stories from Santa Cruz’, a fresh take on Santa Cruz History with the MAH’s first ever podcast. This month, we sat down with Wes Modes, a local artist, activist, and community member with a great care and…
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The Tillers – Shanty Boat at Payne Hollow Kentucky
By and by, I’ll be coming up on Payne Hollow, the holler where Anna and Harlan Hubbard settled out after 5 years spent floating their shantyboat down the Ohio and the Mississippi Rivers in the 1950s. I’ve heard great things from my shantyboat friend Faith about Paul who was the Hubbard’s young friend and is…
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WAMC Albany: Searching For Hudson River Stories On A Shanty Boat
WAMC Public RadioBy Lucas Willard Listen Now to the WAMC Public Radio story: A recreated mid-century shanty boat is traveling down the Hudson River in search of stories. “A Secret History of American River People” is a project by a California-based artist Wes Modes. Modes took WAMC’s Southern Adirondack Bureau Chief Lucas Willard…
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BBC Slow Radio – Life on a shanty boat
A 20-minute watery odyssey – idling down the Tennessee River with the best thunderstorm in a tin shack you are ever going to hear… and some frogs…
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BBC Outlook – Building my own ‘shanty boat’
Wes Modes has spent the last few summers sailing along the great rivers of north America, collecting stories from the people who live on their banks. Wes travels in his homemade houseboat – or shanty boat – called Dotty.
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BBC Between The Ears – The Shanty Boat
In a rich tapestry of watery atmosphere, frustration, intimacy, fear and pleasure, we hear a slipping, sliding adventure, where the smell of pancakes, the slap of water and the smoke of cigars wafts over the waters of Americas great rivers.
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Looking Back at the War Against the Dakota People in Minnesota
I was reminded of these interviews recently, and how little I know when I heard a radio story about the U.S.-Dakota War.The conflict engulfed the very area in which I interviewed the Dakota men. I hadn’t asked Arthur or Art directly about the conflict, though we alluded to it when we talked about the Ft. Snelling Indian concentration…
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A Morning with Zachary Nelson
We ran into Zach Nelson while we were docked at Brickyard Marina. He brought over his 72 year-old grandfather Joe who told us stories while Zach played our shantyboat guitar.
Oral History Archive
Want to go deeper? Explore hundreds of hours of recorded interviews, featuring voices from river communities.