Nina Whaley: Representing Alaska, 1963

Nina Whaley: Representing Alaska, 1963

By Hank Nuwer The year 1963 proved magical for an 18-year-old Alaska girl with her heart set on competing in a number of top beauty pageants. She was Nina Whaley, the daughter of well-known Alaska bush pilot and photographer who also lobbied to institute the World...
A Musher’s Mercy Errand

A Musher’s Mercy Errand

Legendary sprint mushers long will stay household names in Alaska. One of the all-time best was veteran racing champion and veterinarian Roland Lombard. His eight wins in the Anchorage Fur Rendezvous World Championship Sled Dog Race were the most ever until George...

Herbert Gold: Man of Letters     

from Rendezvousing with Contemporary Writers Copyright Hank Nuwer Interviewed by Hank Nuwer Novelist Herbert Gold is the kind of man people fail to notice at parties until they bump into him at the shrimp bowl to find out what they’ve missed all evening. Thin and...
John Hegness: Alaskan Pioneer Musher

John Hegness: Alaskan Pioneer Musher

Last Frontier Days. By Hank Nuwer John Hegness liked to tell people he’d come from Hell. And he had. His birthplace was Hell, Norway, which wasn’t named for a hotspot you’d like to avoid in the afterlife. Nope, his own personal Hell took its name for the Old Norse...