Hank Nuwer Alaska Yarns
My Travel Blog
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Welcome. Grab a coffee and enjoy the story clearinghouse of two-time Alaska Press Club Suzan Nightingale Best Columnist Hank Nuwer with occasional photos by Malgorzata (Gosia) Nuwer. Scroll down for archived Realalaskadaily stories.
Hank Nuwer: University of Alaska (Fairbanks) adjunct professor Hank Nuwer lives, writes, and acts in northern Alaska. Hank Nuwer Bio. Alaska Hank Nuwer News.
Gosia Nuwer photographs Alaska and its wildlife. She and Hank reside in Fairbanks, Alaska, with 5 acres in remote Alaska and a vacation cabin in Poland.
Gosia and her husband Hank recently were profiled by CNN and People magazine.The “Gosiaandhank” team collaborated on an article about Alaskan road trips for Phi Kappa Phi’s Forum Magazine.
Hank recently reviewed a biography of Kurt Vonnegut by Charles J. Shields
Order direct Hank Nuwer’s Indiana University Press books on hazing
Podcast of “Weed in the Garden of Academe” by journalist Ian Mandt with interviewee Hank Nuwer
Nuwer interviewed by NPR’s Audie Cornish
Podcast in The Culture
George Pestriakoff: President Warren G. Harding pardoned him after a murder conviction
By Hank Nuwer The nation’s newspapers carried a two-paragraph story after President Warren G. Harding issued a pardon to an Alaskan murderer on Thanksgiving Day, 1921. The details were scarce. The San Francisco Bulletin said the newly free man was George Pestriakoff,...
Elbert Hubbard: The Man who gave us Madison Avenue and A Message to Garcia
Elbert Hubbard was well known as an author, publisher, lecturer, and furniture manufacturer. But a famous essay and advertising slogans are his most enduring legacy. By Hank Nuwer Many men lust for fame but few find it during a lifetime. Even fewer have their names...
Alaska’s Sid Charles: Back When Newsmakers Were Characters
By Hank Nuwer When Ketchikan Daily News publisher Sid D. Charles died in 1959, he had just taken a few weeks off for illness. Prior to that, he was a working stiff in newspapers from a youth nearly to his last trademark briar pipe puff at age 88. He hailed...
How they celebrated New Year’s in rural Alaska
The First Masquerade Balls By Hank Nuwer Masquerade Balls were about the most popular social event of the year in pioneer Cordova. Guests braved winds, snows, and icy trails to gather for food, drink and comradeship. The first ball was put on in 1912 by the Eagles...
This Story Passed for News in 1951
Humor by Hank Nuwer Now I know that the subject of transplanting fish and game into area where they previously never existed is a serious topic. It’s discussed in university wildlife management classes, Alaska Department of Fish and Wildlife...
Death of a Cordova Merchant and Banker
by Hank Nuwer Samuel Blum in his time was one of the wealthiest Alaskan pioneers, making his money primarily as a mercantile store owner, banker and investor. A devout Jew, he earned statewide respect as a philanthropist. Born and educated in San Francisco, Blum...
An Unlikely (But True) Love Story
From the Cordova Times pf November 29, 2024 My wife Gosia and I enjoyed two Thanksgiving meals this week. Only a few days remain before our community theater Christmas comedy Twas the Night Before Christmas opens. So, the cast members came over to our kitchen last...
Setting a writing agenda
One essay project is a memoir on a savage attack on me with a baseball bat at Cheektowaga Town Park by a street hoodlum named Dale August Fechter. . .’m also writing about multiple disgraced priests at Buffalo’s Diocesan Preparatory seminary, again as a memoir.
General Willis P. Richardson: From Alaska Road Builder to Commander in Siberia
By Hank Nuwer Alaskans and Alaskan visitors by automobile evermore owe a debt to General Wilds Preston Richardson for building the roads more traveled. A native Texan, he was born March 20, 1861, three weeks before Confederate troops fired the first shot of...