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.
Free Willie: The Toad Not Taken
First published in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, June 20, 2023 My wife, Gosia, and I were petless until a mid-size toad came into our lives not long before we moved to Alaska. He excavated a home in the second step of our stoop. A chunk of concrete fell out and...
Eaten alive by mosquitoes? Here’s why.
I’m a hard-bitten columnist. However, I’m not a hard-bitten journalist like the late tough guy Mike Royko, or the late cigar-chomping Jimmy Breslin, or the late hard-drinking Pete Hamill. No, no, I’m not like that tough-guy trio at all. I’m more the soft, cuddly...
Baseball’s New Rules: Why the Dang Hurry?
First published in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, May 14, 2023 by FDNM manging editor Hank Nuwer Once upon a time, a baseball game took its own sweet time from start to finish. A pitcher dawdled with a resin bag on the mound. A batter called time two-three times in a...
The Liquor Store Scammer
First published in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner My wife Gosia left our house on the Indiana-Ohio state line and landed at Fairbanks International Airport at 1:30 a.m. on Friday. A U.S. citizen of one month and originally from Poland, Gosia traveled minus her...
Confessions of a mailbox thief
First Published in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. Contact Fairbanks Daily News-Miner Managing Editor Hank Nuwer at hanknuwer@newsminer.com. A couple weeks ago I put back a neighbor’s mailbox that I stole. Of course, I didn’t really steal the mailbox. How and what...
In Memoriam: Sad Helicopter Crash Kills Three Soldiers
First published in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, May 8, 2023, by managing editor Hank Nuwer I am writing exactly one year after my wife and I visited our acreage in Tok and vacationed in Fairbanks, Sitka, King Salmon and Kodiak before returning to home on the...
Just a nice chance meeting in a barbershop
Link: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner Golden Heart Tales Cutting through my first Alaskan winter Hank Nuwer I recently sat for a fourth haircut since my arrival in Fairbanks mid-January. My wife Gosia cut me first. The second was a stylist shop near the Daily News-Miner....
Three Old Guys Get Their Snowmachine Motors Running
Three self-described “Old Guys” who share a passion for snowmachines are nearing the end of a month-plus-long quest to motor from Grand Rapids, Minnesota to visit the Golden City between April 3 and 5. That puts the trio a few days behind the original scheduled April...
Depending on the kindness of strangers
Good samaritan Jim Burton saved Gosia Nuwer’s bacon. Fairbanks Daily News-Miner: Hank Nuwer/News-Miner "Hank, we have a problem,” my wife Gosia said from the open window of her Jeep. We were just 10 feet into Alaska after a 3,500-mile drive. The temperature was 11...