Hank Nuwer Alaska Yarns

My Travel Blog

Hey there, readers 

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

 

Why I’m a hard-bitten journalist

Why I’m a hard-bitten journalist

Alaska’s state bird is the “moose-quito,” so named by me because of their immense size and toughness.   Our state’s mosquitoes are so mean that when you slap them, they slap you back.   A 2017 report in the Cordova Times blamed climate change for sturdier...

read more
My Birthday Weekend in Cordova By Hank Nuwer

My Birthday Weekend in Cordova By Hank Nuwer

For my wife Malgorzata’s recent birthday, I bought a floral bouquet and, trying to be creative, a black-and-tan Louie’s Lunch Bucket from Duluth Trading Company ($89.95) to take to work.                   The bucket proved big enough to hold a six pack of soda pop,...

read more
Contemplating the road least traveled at age 78

Contemplating the road least traveled at age 78

Ended my weekly column for Winchester, IN paper to put more time into something I've only dabbled in: writing short stories and longer memoir. Change is hard for me, where once it was easy, but this may be the right time. I've enjoyed seeing my stories and interviews...

read more
Read the Novel “Sons of the Dawn: A Basque Odyssey” here by Hank Nuwer

Read the Novel “Sons of the Dawn: A Basque Odyssey” here by Hank Nuwer

                                                        FINAL COPY                                                   Sons of the Dawn                                By Hank Nuwer                               A novel of Old Nevada   z           "Better beans and...

read more
A Victim Accuses His Killer Before Dying

A Victim Accuses His Killer Before Dying

By Hank Nuwer    A miner from Greece lay mortally wounded in the brush at Cordova on September 27, 1914.                   The victim called to a startled passerby. “I’ll give you five dollars if you help me to the hospital,” he said.                   The passerby...

read more
Alaskan Coal Mutiny of 1911 (by Hank Nuwer)

Alaskan Coal Mutiny of 1911 (by Hank Nuwer)

  If the citizens of Cordova of 1911 were to adopt a slogan, it might be “Take this coal and shove it.”                   And shove it or, more accurately, shovel it they did—by the ton.                   The brouhaha began back in 1906. President Teddy Roosevelt’s...

read more
The Vigilantes and the Crooked Sheriff

The Vigilantes and the Crooked Sheriff

A Dirty Lawman Gets a Second Chance By Hank Nuwer                     Blackford County Sheriff Ira M. Barton was 49 when a photo of him with wide, hooded eyes appeared in a Muncie newspaper on December 29, 1931. A headline read “Jailed!”                   A...

read more
Expatriate Games

Expatriate Games

Seven to nine years ago, I commuted from the U.S. to Poland to court my now-wife Gosia, and she did the same in reverse, meeting me by turns in Alaska and Indiana. We were good friends for two years before getting hitched, although I assure you that we both were...

read more