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.
Helen Atkinson: What an Alaskan Lady
My office wall at the News-Miner was mostly bare except for a calendar in Polish. This past week I purchased a low-budget painting of a cabin in the woods signed by watercolorist Helen Atkinson. The artist was born Helen Linck in 1915. Her birthplace was Gold Road,...
Pride cometh before a snowfall
The road to sourdough from cheechako received another setback Thursday. My snowplow guy had not yet cleaned my driveway, but somehow, I made my little Jeep barrel over ice and deep snow right up to the garage door. Right that moment, I felt pride. And we all know what...
Consider the. outhouse…many, many moons ago
I see that the News-Miner web page carries an ad for a calendar with outhouse photos. Outhouses on both western New York boyhood farms of my grandparents were hardly a photographic attraction. My German grandfather stocked real toilet paper in his outhouse. My Polish...
Snug as a bug in cabin
Gosia unloaded the last of the boxes and supplies today that we carted to Alaska from Indiana. Now her bags are packed for a 12:30 a.m. boarding for American Airlines Fairbanks to Seattle to Indianapolis. Our friend and former colleague Ray will give her a ride to...
Arrived in Fairbanks!
"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 below zero. Five minutes earlier, I passed through U.S. Customs. The female officer asked why I...
Today’s “Mooseletter”
The views yesterday were incredible. Each turn of the Alaska Highway brought a new peak. Traffic was sparse. Since leaving U.S. Customs, Gosia and I have yet to read a single state license plate from the U.S. The grand views are even worth the now-busted windshield on...
Living on a Prayer
“I'm goin’ down, down, down, down,” I crowed out of tune along with the radio. I steered the Chevy van from the Alberta highlands near Bezanon toward the stark and rugged terrain of Grande Prairie. Bruce Springsteen’s lament about his bored lover was appropriate...
Vehicle trouble times two
Friday, June 6, started off with double scares. The Jeep Renegade tire pressure was a dozen pounds less than Jeep recommended. The automatic door on the Chevy Uplander failed to close fully after loading. Improbable as it seems, the Jeep and Chevy dealerships...
Ukrainian Rhapsody
PS on Friday. At our hotel in Saskatchewan. Gosia awakened, showered, and dressed for breakfast. She put on a black shirt that read "Nenana Ice Classic." "You think it's cold out?" asked Gosia. "Are we in Canada?" I said in my...