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.
What’s in your fenced yard?
When we lived in Union City, our backyard neighbor was a mama opossum. The first time Gosia saw her with hanging babies, she couldn’t believe such a species existed. At our summer cabin in the woods in rural Poland, I equally thrilled to the sight of a mated pair of...
Duck Moose is back and in his good place
Back in mid-September, I interviewed the head of the Kroschel Wildlife Center near Haines, Alaska, as he was trying to locate and lure back a docile moose raised in captivity. Star attraction Duck Moses found a way to escape from the public education facility and...
A Life-Changing Assignment
By Hank Nuwer Some of my best feature stories never appeared in print. That’s because the era from 1976 to 1992 — when I wrote every month — saw magazine and newspaper circulation numbers drop drastically. As a result, advertisers pulled out and many publications...
Christmas 2023: Remembrances of Christmas Past
Remembrances of Christmas Past By Hank Nuwer My recent role in Fairbanks’ “Miracle on 34th Street” as Kris Kringle has made this a particularly memorable Christmas season. With so many child actors and carolers in the play, the acting experience felt as if family...
The Gift of the Magi
The Gift of the Magi Hank Nuwer Christmas Day was both a special day and a day like any other for this professional writer. My wife Gosia and I are on a budget and so we exchanged gifts. I gave her “beautiful combs, pure tortoise-shell, with jeweled rims.” She gave me...
6 Months in Fairbanks: Guy Walks into a Bard
by Hank Nuwer My six-month anniversary starting work at the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner in Alaska occurs today. My cheechako moments still happen, and sourdough status still is far away. Like last Sunday when I went on a hike by myself near Angel Creek off Chena Hot...
Epitaph for a Writer
By Hank Nuwer John Carlson started as a copyboy in the 70s at Muncie’s evening paper. Years later, gruff World War II veterans like Dick Stodghill asked him to bring over a coffee. But jokes aside, at a newspaper with many good writers, John was the best wordsmith. He...
In praise of a lone elm
by Hank Nuwer Once upon a time, every hamlet in the American Midwest had an Elm Street. But around 1930, a blight came overseas from its origins in the Netherlands. Similar invasions of shade trees also destroyed that king of the forest, the American chestnut...
Another semester, another chance to act: so excited
Well, I am thrilled to share with you that I auditioned for the spring 2024 original play by UAF Professor Kaveline Torres. I tried out for two parts in the play: Fat Cat (with a Scottish accent) and The Professor (who is something of a scalawag and ladies man)....