Hank Nuwer Alaska Yarns

My Travel Blog

Hey there, readers 

Welcome. Grab a coffee and enjoy the story clearinghouse of two-time Alaska Press Club Suzan Nightingale Best Columnist Hank Nuwer with occasional photos by Malgorzata (Gosia) Nuwer.  Scroll down for archived Realalaskadaily stories.

Hank Nuwer: University of Alaska (Fairbanks) adjunct professor Hank Nuwer lives, writes, and acts in northern Alaska. Hank Nuwer Bio.  Alaska Hank Nuwer News.

 Gosia Nuwer photographs Alaska and its wildlife. She and Hank reside in Fairbanks, Alaska, with 5 acres in remote Alaska and a vacation cabin in Poland.  

Gosia and her husband Hank recently were profiled by CNN and People magazine.The “Gosiaandhank” team collaborated on an article about Alaskan road trips for Phi Kappa Phi’s Forum Magazine.

Hank recently reviewed a biography of Kurt Vonnegut by Charles J. Shields

Order direct Hank Nuwer’s Indiana University Press books on hazing

Podcast of “Weed in the Garden of Academe” by journalist Ian Mandt with interviewee Hank Nuwer 

Nuwer interviewed by NPR’s Audie Cornish

Podcast in The Culture

 

Traveling on Moose Time

Nearly two weeks after finishing the drive from the Midwest to Fairbanks, I find myself marveling at the photos my wife Gosia snapped. Each turn of the Alaska Highway brought a new peak to admire. I stood beneath a couple high-risers and risked falling over backwards...

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The Iceman Cometh and he be me

Like all of you, I finished tons of art projects while in grade school. After we finished, my fellow students decorated the classroom walls with their masterpieces. Unfortunately, the teacher always said, “You can take yours home.” I figured the nuns believed I lived...

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Requiem for a toy soldier

This week’s Fairbanks Daily News Miner's editorial board decision to address Alaska’s poor record on keeping up with essential childhood disease vaccinations sent me back to the archives of the News-Miner from 1953 to 1955. Massive fear about the disease among the...

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Helen Atkinson: What an Alaskan Lady

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,...

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Pride cometh before a snowfall

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...

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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...

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Snug as a bug in cabin

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...

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Arrived in Fairbanks!

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...

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