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 Freight Train Running Through the Middle of my Head
Shantyboat Dotty posted up under the Krotz Springs RR bridge with raucous freight trains rolling over our heads by just a few feet all night. Both jarring and surprisingly comforting.
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It’s really fucking raining
We’re beached on a remote sandbar just as it begins to rain real good, complete with thunder and lightning. People ask us all the time what do we do when it rains. We make tea!
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A Storm Gathers
From the Colfax Boat Launch, where the light fades and the clouds build like a slow exhale. Storms feel different on the water—closer, heavier, like the sky’s trying to tell you something. Dotty doesn’t flinch. She’s been through worse.
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Busy busy natures
The nature is very busy here. This is a non-venomous Diamondback Water Snake (Nerodia rhombifer) about 4 foot long, harmless to us, but less so to the fish it has caught. We watched it evade a juvenile American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) which continued to hunt for it long after the snake had cleverly gone underwater…
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First night afloat
After days of chaos—repairs, road miles, dust—we finally got quiet. A river bath, a hot meal, a cigar at sunset. The boat, at last, feels like home again.
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Dotty touches water at last
This is it. After a thousand miles of road mishaps, truck breakdowns, gas station meditations, and desert detours, Dotty finally tastes Louisiana water just above Alexandria. Colfax welcomed us quietly, a gentle entry into the slow-moving story of the river. From here, the miles will unwind differently—no pavement beneath, just current, cypress, and whatever waits…
Recent Audio
Recordings and soundscapes from the river’s edge
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Stay A Little Longer
On warm nights drifting down the river, we’d often sit on the deck with the lanterns lit low, a transistor radio tucked in the corner, and a scratchy country tune bouncing off the water. Bob Wills. Spade Cooley. Hank Penny. We’ve gathered some of those sounds for you—audio recordings from the shantyboat, including “Songs Drifting…
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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…
Oral History Archive
Want to go deeper? Explore hundreds of hours of recorded interviews, featuring voices from river communities.