As an eastern Canadian I had never seen a prairie dog, but when I pulled off the dirt road that cuts through Saskatchewan’s Grasslands National Park there were dozens of them.
Amid the hundreds of dirt mounds, there they were—light brown bundles of fur on their hind legs keeping a watchful eye out for predators. One of those on sentry duty yipped noisily letting the others know of our every move.Â
My wife and I stared back, content to spend time watching the inhabitants of this large prairie dog town.
Over the three days we stayed at the Frenchman Valley campground in August 2025, it slowly dawned on me that I shared a kind of professional kinship with those watchful prairie dogs.
For 30 years I covered Nova Scotia politics, keeping a keen and critical eye on the work of eight premiers and their governments. Like those chattering prairie dogs, I too have kept CBC audiences informed of what their elected representatives were up to.
In recent years, I’ve warned of government over-reach or potential threats to democratic norms and traditions. Less life-threatening, perhaps, than a prowling coyote, ferret or a circling hawk but, to my mind, a kind of democratic survival information for my above-ground community.
But unlike my newly discovered black-tailed brethren, I was no longer on sentry duty after retiring last April.
One of the many prairie dogs of Saskatchewan’s Grasslands National Park. (Jean Laroche)
For almost all of the nearly 40 years I reported, I enjoyed the fast-paced, high-stress, and public job I did in Ottawa, Montreal and finally in Halifax.
However in recent years, the adrenaline rush of meeting tight deadlines, filing the odd scoop or sharing my expertise no longer made up for the daily grind of trying to pry even the most rudimentary facts and figures from those in office and the bureaucrats under their control.Â
My three decades at Nova Scotia’s Province House, covering Liberal, PC and NDP governments did little to insulate me from the unprecedented level of criticism and push-back political reporters now face every day.
Weariness, more than anything else, drove me to retire but I felt guilty about leaving an audience hungry for the kind of context and analysis I was able to provide because of my time in the political trenches. I also felt I was abandoning my colleague, despite their assurances they could soldier on without me.
Those who stopped me in a grocery store aisle or mall parking lot to thank me for my work and to wish me well in retirement only exacerbated the feeling I had abandoned my post and left my community to the wolves.
Perhaps arrogantly, I felt I had been doing my small part to safeguard democracy.
The Trump government’s sustained attack on reporters, civil liberties and democratic institutions in the United States further fed my guilt.
But rather than wallow, or jump into some new project that I might later regret, my wife and I decided to take advantage of my youngest son’s recent move to Yellowknife with his fiancée as an excuse for an epic road trip.
The six-week, nearly cross-Canada drive would also be a way to put distance between my old work life and my whatever-comes-next adventure.
We bought a new SUV and kitted it out with a sleeping platform and created space underneath for our camping gear.
On July 8, we rolled out of our driveway in Dartmouth, N.S., headed west.
We had mapped out visits to family, friends and old colleagues in Montreal, Ottawa and Winnipeg but for most of the trip we would camp out, hike, swim and simply enjoy the ride.
The further I got from home, the more I relaxed and the less I thought about work and the responsibility I felt I was shirking.
Driving through Ontario seemed to take forever.
The prairies provided incredible vistas and spectacular skies.
In Alberta we shared the road with massive bison.Â
In Yellowknife, our son Christian and his partner Hannah showed us around their new hometown and even joined us on a short but memorable bushplane flight over the city.
Work seemed a distant memory by then.
Jean Laroche and his wife, Catherine, took a six-week road trip from Nova Scotia to the Northwest Territories to mark his retirement. (Jean Laroche)
The return trip took us to Jasper and the badlands of Alberta, then to Grasslands National Park where I had my epiphany of sorts.
What I realized, watching those prairie dogs, was that it wasn’t the job of any individual to watch over the colony and warn of danger. It was a shared responsibility.
I realized the same was true in my circumstances.
Others would carry on the work I had been doing, perhaps even better than this cynical and tired old hack.
It’s not particularly comforting to realize after a long, moderately successful but very enjoyable career that you can be replaced. But it’s also freeing.
In the months since our trip, despite the onslaught of stories about the political turmoil in the U.S. and its repercussions here, I’ve discovered my radio’s off switch.
I manage my news input, something I’ve never done before.
I also focus less on what I left behind and more on what’s to come.
I ski. I read. I nap.
I haven’t come to any big decisions but for now I’m content to enjoy more time with family and friends, and to take advantage of the outdoors.
I’m leaving it to my former colleagues to stand guard and provide the warnings I need to stay informed and do my part as a citizen, rather than a reporter.
MORE TOP STORIES