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.
Keeping the community in a community hospital
For someone with one of the most important mover-and-shaker positions in Fairbanks, Shelley Ebenel certainly looks relaxed as she arrives early for a meeting with the Daily News-Miner in a fifth-floor conference room. She opined that she rather likes the weather and...
The movie wasn’t so hot
Soon after I turned 18 and secured my driver license, I asked a pal named Mary to go to a drive-in movie with me. It was my first time, and I begged my father to use his brand new ’65 Ford. Other friends told me wild drive-in stories. Some stuffed other friends into...
The king and I
By Hank Nuwer Guarding a former king was a royal pain My response to the ascendency to the throne of King Charles III is simply to stifle a yawn. Hey, I’ve suffered a personal run-in with the British Crown. I have a right to my opinion. I remember well that July day...
Good news bears: Vote for your favorite chunky hunky
One of the best Alaska traditions to grip the imagination of the world is Fat Bear Week, with voting beginning at 8 a.m. Wednesday, Alaska time. The event was started nine years ago as Fat Bear Tuesday by Mike Fitz, then a Katmai National Park ranger and now the...
Minto, Alaska
Weekends fly by all too fast, don’t they? One week ago Saturday my wife Gosia and I enjoyed the incredible vistas on the highway south of Delta Junction and north of Paxson. The next day I took Gosia for her first trip on the Dalton Highway, but we did not drive too...
What matters is how you “plate” the game
Last week I found my wife Gosia and our visitors from London and Poland in an excited state. Gosia explained that a raptor swooped out of the sky, and its wings blocked her view from the van’s windshield. Gosia braced for impact that never came. At the moment of...
Bright skies, Little City: Fairbanks, Alaska. Home to Auroras
What an exciting and beautiful week for two relatives from London and Gosia’s aunt from Warsaw to visit us. Their big dream was to see an aurora and the skies over Fairbanks. Late night Monday and early Tuesday morning appeared an aurora shade of green I only have...
On the Antlers of a Dilemma
The escape of a wildlife center yearling male moose has resulted in tense correspondence between its director and Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Here is what has occurred. A docile moose named Duck Moses that escaped from Kroschel Wildlife Center on...
An American nightspot with European flair: The Library Bar and Bites; Fairbanks, Alaska
Sophisticated visitors to Fairbanks may appreciate a relative newcomer named the Library Bar and Bites at 603 Lacey street. Founder and co-owner Larry Lowery prides himself on the design of the interior and likes showing a video of the bleak, empty premises before his...