Melissa Block

Politics in Haines, Alaska — population 2,500 — has grown intensely bitter lately, reflecting the volume and heat of national politics.

Timber used to be the economic engine of Ketchikan, Alaska, but after the pulp mill there closed in the '90s, the town turned to tourism.

Dr. Adam McMahan comes to Klukwan, a tiny town in Southeast Alaska, just two days a week. But he's come to know his patients well, and attends to more than just their medical needs.

NPR's "Our Land" series travels to Sitka, Alaska, to meet a salmon fisherman who's spent his life on the water. Eric Jordan describes the feeling of getting these gorgeous creatures to bite.

There's no place like it on the planet: White Sands National Monument in New Mexico. It's the world's largest gypsum dunefield: miles and miles of stunning white landscape.

The two Nogaleses — one in Arizona, the other in Mexico — are in separate countries, but to the people who live there, they feel like one place: a border city.

President Trump has called NAFTA a "catastrophe" and threatened to impose a border tax on Mexican imports. How does that impact produce companies with operations on both sides of the border?

Hamtramck, Mich., used to be mostly Polish. Now, the population has changed, with a growing population of Muslims, coming mostly from Yemen and Bangladesh.

Chinese immigrants came to the Mississippi Delta as agricultural laborers. Many moved on to become grocers in African-American neighborhoods. Some stores remain, but many folks have moved on and away.

The Chelsea Milling Co. is known as the manufacturer of Jiffy baking mixes: for muffins, cakes, biscuits and more. Here's how the family-owned manufacturer has managed to thrive for generations.

Founded by former slaves in 1887, Mound Bayou, Miss., was one of the country's first all-black towns. Here's a look into its historic past and uncertain future.

A visit to a classic, hole-in-the-wall blues bar in Clarksdale, Miss., where owner Red Paden enlightens us about the blues and the Delta.

Few people that live in the Mississippi Delta ever go out on the river. John Ruskey, owner of Quapaw Canoeing Company, wants to change that and get people connected with this wild place.

In 1962, the University of Mississippi was at the heart of the desegregation battle. More than 50 years later, a junior on campus talks race, belonging and his sense of pride in Mississippi.

As Melissa Block's "Our Land" road trip takes her to Mississippi, she visits William Faulkner's home: Rowan Oak, in Oxford, Miss. With curator William Griffith, they talk about Faulkner's running theme of the South in conflict with itself.

The hours are long. The work is hard, and dirty. But this pig farmer in northeast Iowa loves what he does.

It's where Harry S. Truman grew up, where he lived after the presidency, and where he's been laid to rest. Melissa Block stopped by the local soda fountain to talk about how this place stays relevant.

Big Brutus is the world's largest electric shovel, standing 16 stories in the fields of southeast Kansas. The coal mine it helped dig has long been shut down, and Brutus has been turned into a museum.

Independence, Kan., is shrinking with the population down to about 9,000 people. Many businesses have closed up shop, and the city's hospital shut down in 2015. But the folks who live there remain proud of their town and its history.

To launch our road trip series "Our Land," we travel across the country as Donald Trump takes office, and we meet freshly minted citizens at their naturalization ceremony in Kansas City, Mo.