Hank Nuwer Alaska Yarns
My Travel Blog
By Alaska’s Columnist of the Year
Welcome. Enjoy the official story clearinghouse of Alaska author Hank Nuwer with photos by Malgorzata (Gosia) Nuwer. Scroll down to very bottom of this main page for archived stories.
Bio: University of Alaska (Fairbanks) adjunct professor Hank Nuwer
Awards: 2025 Hoosier State Press Association first-place winner for commentary, 2023 and 2024 Alaska Press Club (APC) First-Place Columnist of the Year, and 2022 Ohio SPJ First-Place Columnist of the Year.
Gosia Nuwer photographs Alaska and its wildlife. She and Hank reside in Fairbanks, Alaska, with 20 acres in remote Alaska, and a vacation cabin in Poland.
Gosia and her husband in 2025 contributed an article on Alaska back-road trips for Phi Kappa Phi’s Forum Magazine.
Contact Prof. Hank Nuwer at Hjnuwer@Alaska.edu
Know someone who has fought hazing in student groups, the military or sports? Nominate him/her/them here for a Hank Nuwer Antihazing Hero Award at Hazing Prevention Network.
The Alfred Brady Bunch by Hank Nuwer
Four bandits sped into Farmland from the northwest at 1 p.m. on April 28, 1937, passing the plows and tractors of farmers who worked for their daily bread. As lookout Clarence Shaffer and another man stood guard by the getaway car with tommy guns locked and loaded,...
The Curious Case of the Mail-Order Bride By Hank Nuwer
Martha Whitworth was the daughter of a Louisville, Kentucky teamster and staunch Republican named John Whitworth. In 1892, she married physician Charles Whitworth Vimont, the son of Lewis Thomas Vimont of Louisville. The Vimont family had been the topic of...
He went viral in 1925. Hank Nuwer
A pioneer Cordova businessman named Harry Christie lived his life pretty much unknown by the outside world, but all that changed two days after his death. Born in Illinois, Christie arrived in the Copper River Delta about 1905, intending to make his fortune as...
Nome for the holidays: A Travel Review
By Hank Nuwer Experiencing an adventure in Nome, Alaska, across from mainland Russia, was on a bucket list for my wife Gosia and me. Last Memorial Day weekend we flew to this historic Western city where Wyatt Earp ran the Dexter Saloon during the Gold Rush Days of...
An Adventure in Great Asian Cuisine — Delta Junction, AK at the Hard Wok Cafe
by Hank Nuwer (First published in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, 9/6/2023) A cartoon in The New Yorker last week spoke to me and my wife Gosia. Old Father Time stood on a street corner with a sign reading, “The End of Summer is near, and you still haven’t made any...
Lusting in my heart: for a stamp collection
by Hank Nuwer I don’t gamble, but if I did my adrenaline might skyrocket as it did the night I entered an online Great North Auction for the stamp collection of the late Russell Hobart Green Jr. of Fairbanks. I knew exactly what was in the collection and had a pretty...
His Sister’s Keeper
Photo: the late former Florence Livingston Thurman Livingston, 12, and his sister Florence, 8, were typical kids enjoying life on a farm northeast of Union City. On Aug. 30, 1936, around 10 a.m., they decided to build a fire in the woods near their home. Thurman, a...
What’s It like to hit a Moose?
by Hank Nuwer Moose in Alaska are everywhere. You can’t escape them. When my wife Gosia and I take our favorite daily stroll through the University of Alaska’s splendid botanical gardens, we keep a wary eye out for the critters who come out of the...
Covering a Protest by Angry Minnesota Farmers Proved a Challenge.
Gaza protests at U.S. campuses took me back to memories of 1978 when I covered demonstrations by Minnesota farmers protesting a powerline being put up by the Cooperative Power Association (CPA). I donned suit and tie to interview CPA executives who defended their...