On October 17 Darby and Geri Nelson celebrated the release of Darby’s newest book, For Love of a River: The Minnesota.
Darby is an aquatic ecologist, biology professor emeritus at Anoka-Ramsey Community College and author committed to exploring, preserving, and celebrating Minnesota’s rivers and lakes. He served in the Minnesota House of Representatives for six years and on Freshwater’s board of directors. Preceding, For Love of a River, Darby published the beloved, For the Love of Lakes, which was a Minnesota Book Award Finalist in 2012.
Darby and Geri met at the Itasca Biological Station over a round leech with one hundred babies attached to her abdomen. One reason Geri married Darby was his creative ideas about fun things to do. Throughout their marriage, they have enjoyed canoe and kayak expeditions to Alaska, the Yukon, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Greenland, Norway, and Minnesota. For Love of a River chronicles Darby’s deep love for the Minnesota River Valley and a journey in which Darby and Geri paddled the Minnesota River from its source to its confluence with the Mississippi River.
Freshwater is grateful to Darby and Geri for a lifetime of devotion to the waters of Minnesota.
Learn more about Darby’s work and his publications here.