Retiring Dan Gunderson on decades covering the Native community in northwest Minnesota

NINA MOINI: Well, reporter Dan Gunderson retires this week. He spent decades reporting Native American stories in the Fargo-Moorhead region. Dan has highlighted many community members from the White Earth Nation, including artists, tribal leaders, and those working on land return efforts. He was at Standing Rock, reporting from the camp during the 2016 pipeline standoff in North Dakota. And he covered many other stories, including boarding school history, wild rice harvests, and cultural reclamation, including this story about traditional ways of Ojibwe people in Minnesota.

DAN GUNDERSON: The Young Warrior Society provides a support system and reinforces traditional Anishinaabe values. The kids also learn age-old skills like beadwork and drum-making.

[BANGING DRUM]

TOM MASON: Hopefully that's tight enough.

DAN GUNDERSON: Tom Mason is tying wet rawhide over a drumhead.

TOM MASON: It's always hard to judge, when you tie a drum, if it's too tight.

DAN GUNDERSON: Do you go for a certain sound, then?

TOM MASON: Yeah, I like the bassy sound. Like this sounds good here.

[BANGING DRUM]

When that dries it won't be so muffled, but it'll be--

[VOCALIZING]

[DRUMMING]

NINA MOINI: That was a clip of Dan's work from the 2003 "Rekindling the Spirit-- The Rebirth of American Indian Spirituality." Native News editor Leah Lemm spoke with Dan Gunderson about his reporting on tribal nations as a non-Native journalist. He reflects on the necessary and long-term work of building trust.

LEAH LEMM: Can you tell me a bit about the start of your career and how you got into chatting with Native people?

DAN GUNDERSON: I was looking around my geographic area that I cover, and I have the largest reservation in the state in my area. And I'm thinking, nobody's covering this. So that was really the start of it, was just thinking, these are voices that are not being heard. My job is to get out there and try to give them an opportunity to be heard.

LEAH LEMM: So you started in 1987. When was that realization of that need to expand over to White Earth?

DAN GUNDERSON: I would say probably around 1990 is when I started doing more of that. And I mean, I have to say, it took several years. There was a lot of going there and being frustrated, and finding people didn't trust outsiders and didn't want to talk to me. And there were many times I went to White Earth and came back without a story. But eventually I earned some trust, enough to get people to talk to me. [CHUCKLES]

LEAN LEMM: Can you tell me a bit about leadership, like MPR leadership at that time, and how supportive they were of your going out to White Earth and not coming back with a story? How supportive were they?

DAN GUNDERSON: Well, initially, when I told my editor I wanted to start doing stories in Indian Country, my editor said, well, if anyone's going to do it, it'll be you, so go for it. And there was an understanding that those stories would take longer and be more challenging. And there was occasionally pushback, like, boy, that's taking a long time to get that story, kind of thing. But no one ever said, stop doing it.

LEAH LEMM: How did you do it?

DAN GUNDERSON: I'm a persistent person. [LAUGHS] Not easily deterred. And so I just kept going back until I began to make some inroads with people, and the more people-- I think a couple of people, really, in a sense, almost took me under their wing and thought, maybe this guy's OK. George Fairbanks was one. And he was influential in the White Earth community.

And then Andy Favorite was, at the time, the tribal historian, and I would go sit in Andy's office and he would lecture me for hours. And he educated me a lot. He taught me a lot of history. Of course, I grew up and went to school in Minnesota. I didn't learn the real history, right? So I had to learn all of that in order to understand, and be able to ask the right questions and have the right perspective.

LEAH LEMM: What did you find worked for you to make a connection, and be able to do effective reporting in Indian Country and particularly White Earth?

DAN GUNDERSON: I think the things I learned reporting in Indian Country that made me a better journalist was humility, learning to listen, and learning to go into a situation with the intention of earning the respect of the people that I was going to be talking to. I remember one of the first times I went there and came back without a story, George Fairbanks, he said to me, white people come here for two reasons. They come to take something or to fix us. So why are you here?

And I thought about that for days after that. So that was an influence on me thinking about, yeah, here's the perspective that the people I'm talking to have of me, right? I need to overcome that. He's also a person who said to me, you should come here when there's a good story to tell.

LEAH LEMM: Mm-hmm. Did you figure out your purpose, why you were approaching them, why you were approaching folks from White Earth?

DAN GUNDERSON: Well, just because I felt like their voices should be heard. People sometimes said to me-- in those earlier days, we'd sit down to do an interview, and they'd be like, why is a white guy here doing this? And I would say, well, who's telling your story? Do you think it's important for your story to be heard? And they would usually say, yeah, I think it is. So here's an opportunity for you to tell your story.

Yeah, I guess it was pretty simple for me. I didn't have any real agenda or anything. It was just like, these are voices in my coverage area that are not being heard, so it's my job to go in and try to tell their stories.

LEAH LEMM: Well, you talked about listening, demonstrating that you're listening, and gaining trust. How do you go about demonstrating good listening and gaining trust?

DAN GUNDERSON: Sure, I think so. It was partly learning communication styles. Andy Favorite taught me a lot about that. I had said something to him about-- because someone had blown me off for an interview or something and I was complaining about it, probably. And he said, if you want people to talk, you have to learn to listen. And I said, well, of course I listen. I'm a journalist, right? He said, no, you're listening to ask your next question. You have to listen to understand.

And he said, Native people aren't communicating the same way people you're used to talking to are, right? It might be a circular conversation, but it comes back to the main point. But they want you to know the history and the background, and you've got to listen. So that was also pretty influential for me, because I realized he was right. Like a lot of journalists, I was thinking about my next question as I'm listening.

And so I learned to listen with an open mind. There's the saying, come with a good heart, and that's a nonjudgmental, open approach to listening. So I think that's something I learned. I also learned to be patient. Like, I can remember going and sitting under a tree in the shade and just waiting for someone to decide they were ready to talk to me.

LEAH LEMM: I was going to ask, then, if there's a way that your reporting at White Earth or other tribal nations has affected you personally beyond your work.

DAN GUNDERSON: Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think it's made me more aware of humility, and the value that has as a person. I think it's made me, in general, more patient, and probably more respectful in general too of people. Like always thinking of other people's perspective, that everybody has a perspective.

LEAH LEMM: Any other reflections?

DAN GUNDERSON: When I think about all the people who trusted me with their stories-- and some of them were really, really painful stories for people to tell-- and having someone trust you and believe that you will respect that story, because it's not my story. It's their story. I'm just the person who's sharing it with a wider audience. I just would say I just feel really honored to have been accepted in a culture that I didn't know anything about or understand. [CHUCKLES]

LEAH LEMM: Well, what would you say to the next Moorhead reporter?

DAN GUNDERSON: The things I would say to any young reporter goes back to the fundamentals of listening and being respectful, and doing your homework, and just making sure you do the best work possible. That's how you earn respect, I think, is by always doing your best work. And even if you make a mistake, well, it will happen, right? You will make mistakes. This is a fast-moving business. But if people understand that you're giving it your best shot every time, they're going to, I think, respect that effort.

NINA MOINI: That's reporter Dan Gunderson talking with Native News editor Leah Lemm. Dan is retiring this week after 38 years with MPR News.