Episode
BONUS CLAMMY AND FISHY EPISODE: In Memory of Paul Dorpat, 1938 - 2026
- Podcast
- Cascade of History
- Published
- May 27, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 1542
- Processing state
not_requested
Actions
POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/cascade-of-history-14444/episodes/bonus-clammy-and-fishy-episode-in-memory-of-paul-dorpat-1938-2026/transcription-requests
Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/cascade-of-history-14444/bonus-clammy-and-fishy-episode-in-memory-of-paul-dorpat-1938-2026.md
Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.
Summary
Re-posting this CLAMMY AND FISHY BONUS EPISODE in memory of beloved Seattle historian Paul Dorpat, October 28, 1938 to May 27, 2026. Anyone who works in history, public history or anything related to local history in the Pacific Northwest stands on the shoulders of the kind-hearted, brilliant and very funny Paul Dorpat. He was truly one of the good guys. REST IN PEACE. ORIGINAL EPISODE DESCRIPTION: On this CLAMMY AND FISHY BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY from November 2025, Feliks Banel (clam)digs into the audio archives to tell the twisted tale of the Ivar’s Billboard Hoax, aka "Underwatergate." Though, once you've listened, it may have you wondering if there was ever hoax at all, or if it was actually some kind of elaborate coverup. In 2009, Seattle-based Ivar’s seafood restaurants released a series of videos documenting the search for and discovery of UNDERWATER BILLBOARDS in Puget Sound. As the story goes, they were placed in the 1950s by restaurateur and showman Ivar Haglund to reach burgeoning submarine traffic. The 2009 undersea search was all very exciting, and many were completely hooked. But then, Jim Dever, with KING 5's Evening Magazine at the time - and still a great friend of CASCADE OF HISTORY - had the exclusive exposé, produced in cooperation with Ivar’s, and featuring Ivar’s CEO Bob Donegan. As Dever's report made it seem, the whole thing was a brilliant stunt that fooled a lot of people - but it angered a few, too, who thought Ivar's had gone too far. Fast forward to November 2015, and naïve history radio correspondent Feliks Banel set out to tell the backstory with help from Paul Dorpat. Dorpat is a beloved historian - and friend and biographer of Ivar - who had served as official historian of the vintage underwater billboard hunt. When the hoax…