This is my final column as outdoors editor of the Grand Forks Herald, a position I’ve held since February 1998. I’ve retired – it’s going to take a while for that to sink in – and my last day was Thursday, Dec. 4. Retirement wasn’t forced on me; it was my choice, and for that I am gratef ul. You could call this a “retirement announcement,” I suppose, but it’s also an opportunity to look back on a career that’s spanned more than 40 of my 64 (and soon to be 65) years on this earth. I started at the Herald on Nov. 26, 1985, as a young copy editor barely a year out of college. I spent the first 3½ years with the Herald company as a copy editor for Agweek Magazine before moving “across the alley” to the Herald newsroom, where I was in charge of editing and designing features pages. I also had the opportunity to cover concerts by the Rolling Stones in the Twin Cities and Paul McCartney in Winnipeg – the latter from a seventh-row center seat on the floor. THE career highlight for me – and, I daresay, for everyone else who was on staff at the time – was being part of the Herald team that covered the Flood of 1997. “Come Hell and High Water” was the front page headline on Monday, April 21, 1997, and the Herald never missed a day of publishing, even though the office burned in the fire that ravaged downtown Grand Forks. Part of the staff relocated to the Manvel School to report on the disaster, while others, myself included, wrangled copy at the St. Paul Pioneer Press, our sister paper at the time. Brad Dokken aboard the plane that carried him and two other Grand Forks Herald employees to St. Paul on Saturday, April 19, 1997 — the day several buildings in downtown Grand Forks, including the Herald office, caught fire and burned. As reporters filed stories from a makeshift newsroom at the school in Manvel, N.D., the newspaper for the next several weeks was produced and published at the St. Paul Pioneer Press, a Herald sister paper at the time. After nearly 30 years of covering the outdoors, Dokken retired from the Grand Forks Herald on Dec. 4, 2025. (Forum News Service) The coordination and teamwork it took for the newspaper to continue publishing through such adversity – and without the technology available today – boggles the mind. On April 14, 1998, the Herald won the coveted Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for its coverage of the flood disaster. The party that night was the stuff of legends. In a classic case of “being in the right place at the right time,” I became the Herald’s outdoors editor in February 1998. As with any job, there’ve been ups and downs, but it’s been an amazing ride. There’ve been so many adventures, like the time two of us were caught in near-blizzard conditions, facing a 40-plus-mile snowmobile ride back to camp after a day of lake trout fishing on the Ontario side of Lake of the Woods. Thanks to staked trails and my hand-held GPS, we made it without incident, but I kissed the ground when we got back to the cabin after dark. Another time, in July 1999, now-retired photographer John Stennes and I were in Churchill, Manitoba, visiting a research camp on Hudson Bay where a crew was studying the damage that overabundant snow goose populations were having on the fragile arctic landscape. These are the same birds that pass through North Dakota in spectacular migrations every spring and fall. Polar bears were a constant concern for the research crew, and some in the group carried firearms for protection. “You’re just another food source” to the polar bears, we were told, and willingly stayed behind the armed researchers while venturing out on the tundra. I’d never thought of myself as a “food source” until later that morning, when a polar bear came running toward us and got within about 200 yards before deciding to turn away. That’ll get the heart beating, trust me. The polar bear was one of several we saw on that memorable trip. More than anything, though, I’ll remember the people who shared their stories, who shared time in the boat, in a grouse-viewing blind or let me visit their hunting camp. Like George Gardner, the “grand old man” of the Grand Forks Builders and Traders Exchange, who organized the group’s annual fishing trip nearly every year from 1952 until 2007, the last trip he made before he died. I was in the boat with George that sunny Saturday afternoon in late May 2007, when he caught his last walleye – a 22½-inch beauty – on the final day of the group’s trip to Obabikon Bay Camp on the Ontario side of Lake of the Woods. Covering the outdoors provided the opportunity to meet some memorable people, such as the late George Gardner, who for years organized the Grand Forks Builders and Traders Exchange's annual Canadian fishing trip. George was 93 when he landed this 22½-inch walleye in May 2007. It would be the last walleye he ever caught, as he died the next winter. Operating the boat was Ontario fishing guide Bill Luney. (Brad Dokken / Forum News Service) There was still time to fish before the guide headed back to camp, but George was content to sit back and enjoy the scenery instead. “I’m all through,” he said. “I did all right today.” George was 94 when he died the next winter, and I had the privilege of being back with the crew in May 2008, when the Builders and Traders, along with son Terry Gardner and grandson Scott Gardner, paid tribute to George by sprinkling some of his ashes on an island that had become his favorite shore lunch spot. “To George!” the Builders and Traders said in unison as they honored this man who was small in stature but larger than life in personality. Minutes later, Terry Gardner caught a 30¼-inch walleye just around the corner from the island. “I think George had something to do with that one,” he said later. I think he’s right. So many memories; so many stories. The opportunity to experience and share those stories is what I’ll miss most about the job. What I won’t miss is the grind of having to “feed the beast” and produce enough content to fill a three-page outdoors section every week. The Herald has hired a capable replacement in Andy Weeks, who was editor of the Herald’s Prairie Business magazine from 2019 until 2022, and I’m confident he’ll do well in his new role as outdoors editor. If he’s able to have even half the experiences I’ve enjoyed on the job, he’s a lucky man indeed. As for me, I’ll still be out there – on the ice, in the boat, in the woods – at every opportunity, and I’ll even write about it as a freelancer from time to time. But it will be on my schedule. To all of you who’ve read my stories, who’ve made my years at this job so enjoyable, I say thank you. Now it’s time to close the laptop, get the ice fishing gear in order, get the snowmobiles off the trailer and see what the next chapter holds in store. And with that, I bid farewell. 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