Hank Nuwer Alaska Yarns
My Travel Blog
Welcome, Guests
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 collaborated on an article about Alaskan road trips for Phi Kappa Phi’s Forum Magazine.
Hank reviewed “And So It Goes,” a biography of Kurt Vonnegut by Charles J. Shields
Link to 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
Link to the Cordova Times
Podcast in The Culture
Elegy for my late Ball State University student Darla Stafford
One of the hardest-working, nicest students I ever taught at Ball State University (1985-1989) was a national spokeswoman for the U.S. Postal Service during the anthrax mail scare aftermath in 2001. Her name was Darla Stafford. When I guest-taught a class for her in...
Part Two: 1947-1962: 15 Years of Struggle for Team Machetanz
Our story thus far: Made a widow in a World War Two dirigible accident that killed her young Airman husband, Sara Burleson Dunn came to Alaska for a postwar vacation. In 1947 she wed Unalakleet children’s book author Frederick (Fred) Machetanz. By Hank Nuwer Fred and...
Second chance at love: Part I
by Hank Nuwer, Cordova Times Sara Burleson Dunn’s world came crashing down on May 16, 1944, when a U.S. naval air station dirigible slammed into a hangar on a training mission and plunged 258 feet to a concrete runway. The tragedy occurred at Lakehurst, New Jersey,...
Mudhole Smith Helped Feed Cordova in 1946
Last Frontier Tales By Hank Nuwer When a short list of 20th Century Alaskan legends is discussed, chances are Merle K. “Mudhole” Smith is somewhere up at the top of the heap. After all, the one-time barnstormer and bush pilot served as...
Polar Attraction: A Bear-Watching Trip to Utqiagvik
Last Frontier Days Polar Attraction: A Bear-Watching Trip to Utqiagvik Review by Hank Nuwer Last weekend arrived, and it was time for us to fly out to yet another remote Alaska city, because that’s my wife Gosia’s bucket list dream. We’ve recently scratched...
“Aunt Jean”: An Unforgettable Alaskan Artist
Last Frontier Day “Aunt Jean”: An Unforgettable Alaskan Artist By Hank Nuwer It was 1980, in northern Colorado, when I chatted with Martha Jean Shadrach for the first time. A contributing writer to Denver Magazine then, I accepted an invitation from Jane, my...
From Slavery to Freedom to Public Service: The Healy Family
From Slavery to Freedom to Public Service: The Healy Family By Hank Nuwer First published in Cordova Times Irish immigrant Michael Morris Healy and his lifelong companion Mary Eliza Clark Smith found solace in their Catholic religion and took joy in the...
Ian Mandt’s Hazing: A weed in the garden of academe podcast
Here is the link to this powerful podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/weed-in-the-garden-of-academe/id1460320573?i=1000706636684
Highly recommended: “If Your Dreams Don’t Scare You” by Joni Tevis
Yesterday for the first time I read a sad, brilliant piece of creative nonfiction in The Georgia Review, a periodical my long-ago house mate once appeared in. And like my former house mate, the author of this story was a Pushcart Press award winner. The title is "If...