Back Channel Radio is an oral documentary project that focuses on the preservation of undertold narratives. “A Wolf Spider Island Story” is an ongoing digital and document archive, and podcast based on oral history interviews about a small boathouse community on the Mississippi River in Minnesota that pulled together to legally sanction their floating homes. It is told mostly through the rememberings of longtime resident and unofficial island historian, John Rupkey.

Back Channel Radio is written and hosted by Gina Favano, an artist and musician who has performed and painted in galleries, venues, and unconventional spaces throughout the U.S. and Europe since 2003. Originally from Philadelphia, she currently lives in a boathouse on Wolf Spider Island, in Minnesota.

The podcast is produced by Suzanne Hogan, a Kansas City-based podcast producer and multi-media documentarian. She is a creator and host of the KCUR podcast “A People’s History Of Kansas City,” and has done freelance work for NPR, Gimlet, BBC, and BirdNote.