Rambling by the river
Homegrown podcast is
streamed around the world
BY CAITLIN SEYFRIED
Up two narrow fl ights of stairs in the loft
of a crab shed in Chinook, Washington is
where you might fi nd Jeff Nesbitt recording
his next podcast episode.
Nesbitt launched his podcast “Ramble by
the River” in January and has since hosted
31 episodes featuring conversations with
guests from all walks of life.
Nesbitt grew up on the Long Beach Pen-
insula and now lives in Chinook with his
family. Working in natural resources by
day, the podcast gives him a creative outlet.
Ramble by the River is Nesbitt’s fi rst public
creative project.
“I felt like I needed to make something
and I always wanted to make a podcast,”
Nesbitt said, “because when I listen to pod-
casts, I have things to add. I found myself
wishing I was in the room.”
The coronavirus pandemic pushed Nes-
bitt from wishing to building a record-
ing studio. He renovated a small corner of
his father-in-law’s warehouse used to store
crabbing gear. On the walls that surround
his audio set up, Nesbitt painted a mural of
abstract jewel-toned mountains.
Nesbitt was not experienced in audio
production before starting the podcast, so
he had to study up and learn on the fl y.
Podcasting may seem as simple as hitting
record, “but it’s a lot more involved than
that,” Nesbitt said. “The audio engineering
portion of it is insanely time-consuming. I
didn’t anticipate that.”
Rambling together
“At the very heart, Ramble by the River
is about connection. Being connected to the
people around you, being connected to the
environment, and being connected to your-
self and knowing yourself,” Nesbitt said.
Through his fi rst 31 episodes, Nesbitt’s
guests have included his friends and family,
local business owners, a golfer, a commer-
cial fi sherman, and a climate activist. The
topics that Nesbitt and his guests cover are
even more expansive.
The logo for
Nesbitt’s podcast.
Where to listen
Episodes of ‘Ramble by the River’
are available to listen to at
ramblebytheriver.captivate.fm/listen
“Cryptocurrency, consciousness, the
nature of reality, spirituality, economics,
religion, those are the hits,” Nesbitt said.
However, it’s not necessarily the topics
that inspire the conversations.
“It’s the passion that I want to talk about,
not necessarily the individual thing that
they’re passionate about. I want to talk
about that too, but it’s the fury that I see in
their eyes when they talk about it, that’s the
part I want to capture,” Nesbitt said.
As with any ramble, conversations on
the podcast meander around the minutiae of
daily life to guest’s backstories and big life
questions. However, Nesbitt and his guests
also stumble upon tricky subjects and diffi -
cult stories.
One of the more diffi cult moments on
the podcast for Nesbitt was to sit with grief
and pain in a conversation with Lindy
Swain about the death of her niece Dylan
Jude Harrell (the namesake of Dylan’s Cot-
tage Bakery in Long Beach).
“I generally make jokes about everything
and try to get away from the discomfort,
Caitlin Seyfried
See Page 9
Nesbitt looks inside the crab shed, where he records ‘Ramble by the River.’
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