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 life lessons learned from Jim Kjelgaard’s outdoor books
My boyhood was spent in two cultures: Polish on my mother’s side, German-speaking Alsatian on my father’s. I used to tell my blue-collar father I longed to see Europe, a continent he saw through three vision blocks as a Sherman tank driver all of World War II. He saw...
The Nenana Depot’s lodgings are a step back in time; a close call in Maui by Hank Nuwer
Many years ago, on assignment for the AARP, Country Gentleman and Outside magazines, I stayed at more than a dozen century-old hotels in the American West. Some like the Copper Queen in Bisbee, Arizona, were under renovation at the time, but their lobbies and dining...
Belong anywhere with Airbnb: Except Salcha, Alaska
My wife Gosia and I decided to take a working vacation in Alaska early in October 2021. We landed in Anchorage and rented our usual small SUV and drove toward Kenai where I needed to do a routine freelance writing assignment. Weather that month brought cold...
Leszek Nazieme: Rolling on the Yukon River
An adventurer from Poland came to Alaska to complete his latest swimming challenge. Leszek Nazieme swam the Yukon River from Eagle to Circle, completing the 158-mile swim in 4½ days. Nazieme said his inspiration for his adventures came years ago on a stay in the Czech...
Beer and salmon: A Perfect Pairing
Have you heard about the salmon scientific experiment underway in Oregon? Hakai magazine reports that field researchers may have found a way to persuade hatchery fish to swim upstream back to their hatchery home the way wild young salmon do. Now, as a cheechako to...
Gosia and I were in Romeo and Juliet, July 28, 29, 30, 2023 at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks
Romeo and Juliet opened with Shakespeare’s oft-recited prologue as the entire cast assembles. Photo by Bryan Kramer Review by Selena Moore “Romeo and Juliet” is arguably Shakespeare’s most well known play. There are numerous film adaptations, it’s the inspiration for...
Sweet Bull of Youth
The celebration of the Golden Days Rodeo, the northernmost rodeo in America, takes me back to 2004 and my own rodeo adventure. After my marriage of two decades blew up, I chucked my living room furniture and put in a gym complete with metallic torture contraptions and...
TV personality Jim Tweto, 68, died Friday in an airplane crash
Well-known Alaska pilot, business leader and TV personality Jim Tweto, 68, died Friday in an airplane crash on the coast of remote western Alaska. Also killed in the crash was his longtime friend Shane Reynolds, 45, an Idaho fishing guide known for taking clients out...
Covid and twinkletoes
The Tanana Valley Farmers Market celebration this weekend made me curious about the first-ever event. I found the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner edition from July 20, 1973, with a short article buried on Page 3. The headline read: “Farmers market here Saturday.” The...