Dan Gunderson, longtime MPR journalist and master Minnesota storyteller, retires
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A public radio stalwart with a passion for telling stories is hanging up his microphone.
Dan Gunderson, the longtime MPR News correspondent based in Moorhead, is retiring after 38 years of reporting from northwestern Minnesota.
Since starting at MPR in 1987, Gunderson has covered the devastation of Red River floods, fires and other disasters. He chronicled the experiences of Minnesota farmers facing economic challenges, weather and diseases that threatened their livelihood.
He explored questions about nature, science and the environment, such as why bees are dying, how invasive species are spreading and the climate is changing.
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But after nearly four decades of reporting, Gunderson says what he remembers most is the people at the heart of his stories.
“As humans, we crave connection,” he said. “And I think as journalists, especially broadcast journalists, we have an opportunity to help build that connection between people.”
Gunderson, 66, grew up in Marshall County in northwestern Minnesota. He said he stumbled into radio after going to college with the idea of becoming a wildlife biologist. Job prospects weren’t great, but he loved to write, so someone suggested he try journalism.
After finishing college, Gunderson got an internship at a small commercial radio station in Fergus Falls. A couple of years later, a Minnesota Public Radio job opened in Moorhead.
Gunderson said he fell in love with radio the first time he assembled a sound-rich story.
“I've always seen it as kind of a craft,” he said. “And it's just such a joy to do that — to create, build these stories, taking the story that someone entrusts you with, and making it something that can be useful.”
Gunderson spent his entire MPR career at the Moorhead bureau. He said he never felt the need to move, or pursue the next rung on the career ladder.
He said northwestern Minnesota has always appealed to him, with its open prairie and big sky. With forests close by and agriculture all around, he always found plenty to write about.
“There were so many great stories to tell here, so many environmental stories in this part of the state. I never got bored,” Gunderson said. “There was always another great story out there to tell.”
Euan Kerr, a former MPR News editor who worked with Gunderson for many years, said his depth of knowledge about the region is unparalleled.
“It would be hard to find someone who has more understanding of life in the Red River Valley, whether it be from a business point of view or from a cultural point of view,” Kerr said.
Technology has changed dramatically since Gunderson started his radio career. He first used a cassette recorder that weighed roughly 10 pounds and was carried on a shoulder strap. Editing a story required using a razor blade to cut reel-to-reel tape.
“One of the most exciting things that's happened to me in my career was when digital editing became a reality and you could actually edit stories on the computer,” he said. “It opened up a whole new world for creating sound-rich pieces that were smooth and sounded great.”
Back in the 1980s, MPR’s bureaus each had multiple reporters who covered local news and produced their own newscasts and shows. Gunderson hosted Morning Edition for a few years. Later, the focus shifted to more statewide coverage.
Kate Smith, a former Minnesota Public Radio editor who worked with Gunderson, said his stories connected listeners across the state with the people and stories of northwestern Minnesota.
“His roots are so deep and his knowledge is so respectful of the people and the communities and the traditions, that he always helped me learn something — whether it was the fact in a story we happened to be working on, or something about a tradition I knew nothing about,” Smith said.
The first Red River flood Gunderson covered was in 1989. He would cover several more, including record-breaking ones in 1997 and 2009, when thousands of homes and businesses were destroyed and lives forever changed.
“He watched people lose everything. He watched neighborhoods disappear,” Smith said. “He observed changes in the human condition in the Red River Valley that nobody could have predicted or believed that a community like Grand Forks, East Grand Forks and Fargo-Moorhead could live through.”
During the floods, Gunderson worked in difficult conditions, before mobile phones and GPS, with roads often underwater.
“I would just go out and walk through neighborhoods and look for people who are out, maybe monitoring their dike for leaks, or piling sandbags or doing whatever work they had to do. And we just stop and talk,” he said. “That's how I got some of the best stories.”
Kerr recalls one of those stories from the 1997 flood, when Gunderson rode in a boat with emergency responders in East Grand Forks. One wanted to stop to retrieve his wife’s wedding dress from their flooded home. The officers had to break a window on the second floor to get inside, because the water was so high.
As the officer sat in the boat and wept, Gunderson captured the moment, which was replayed by national media.
“It was just the perfect and horrible radio moment,” Kerr said. “It captured the emotion of that in a way that I don’t think any other medium could have done.”
Gunderson also covered Minnesota’s Indigenous communities at a time when few mainstream media outlets were doing so.
“I realized nobody’s covering these issues, and here’s a group of people that are not having their voices heard,” he said. “So I naively thought I could just go in and start covering those issues. But I found out I had to be educated first.”
It took time to build trust with tribal members, Gunderson said. He later covered gut-wrenching stories such as a deadly school shooting on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in 2005, and the remains of children who died in the late 1800s at a St. John’s boarding school returned to the White Earth Reservation last year.
“I feel really, really grateful to the people who have trusted me with their stories, and allowed me to tell some of the stories that were in some cases pretty raw and difficult to share,” he said.
For the past year, Gunderson has been producing a weekly series called “Wander and Wonder.” He’s driven 9,000 miles across the state to highlight everyday Minnesotans doing inspiring things.
In a time of political and social division, the stories have resonated with listeners and readers, which doesn’t surprise Gunderson.
“The thing that's kind of been surprising a little bit to me is how much community I found,” he said. “So many of the people that I interviewed were so invested in their community and doing things for no pay, no reward except the fact that they were able to do something for their community.”
Gunderson doesn’t have major plans for retirement. Without deadlines, he’ll have more time to pursue his hobbies, which include beekeeping, photography and building things.
“Who knows what might happen in the future? We’ll see,” he said. “I will always stay curious. And so who knows what that curiosity might lead me to?”
