Apple Mail Backup Question

I'm currently running Apple Mail on Tiger on my MBP. I want to backup the mail on my MBP and read them on my iMac without having to import the mail folders onto Apple Mail on my iMac. Is this possible? (As a side note, I'm currently running Leopard on my iMac and will be upgrading to Snow Leopard soon, so I would like to be able to read my mails in Snow Leopard).

I remember back in the Panther days, you could read individual emails from Apple Mail mailboxes that you backed up without having to import them back into the program.

Thanks!

 

Also, another point I will add is that this is for an inactive email account I use to have. So, I can't simply use IMAP or put the mail back to the original servers since I don't have access to them anymore. I just need a simple way to archive my email and be able to read it without having to import it into my mail program completely. Any thoughts? Thanks.