New documentary looks at why shipwrecks led to conflict in the PNW

If you’ve ever hung out in Oregon’s Fort Stevens State Park, you’ve probably come face to face with the Peter Iredale shipwreck. 

The British vessel crashed onto the coast in 1906 and has stayed there ever since. Today it has become quite the tourist attraction. 

But for all its notoriety, the Peter Iredale is just one of more than 2,000 shipwrecks that happened along a dangerous stretch of coastline in the Pacific Northwest. And with many of these wrecks came conflict. 

A new documentary explores how shipwrecks led to tension - and, sometimes, violence - between Indigenous communities and colonists in the Pacific Northwest. 

Guest:

• Anna King, a senior correspondent for Northwest Public Broadcasting and the director of “WRECKED.” 

Related stories:

• Wrecked: Sinking ships and colliding cultures on the Northwest Coast
• More Than 100 Died When the S.S. Valencia Wrecked in the ‘Graveyard of the Pacific’—Learn Why This Stretch of Coastline Has Claimed Thousands of Ships

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