Hank Nuwer Alaska Yarns

from the Cordova Times, March 21, 2025 When Flu Fears Raged in Alaska By Hank Nuwer The Cordova Times in 1920 addressed a nasty flu outbreak that resulted in deaths all over Alaska from 1918 to 1920. Similar outbreaks in Seattle, Chicago and New York resulted in many...

Thank you to University of Alaska for this nice profile in time four our musical strike in March 2025. https://www.uaf.edu/cla/news/2025/weight-of-power.php he Weight of Power Kade Mendelowitz Hank Nuwer as Harry Fatt (left), Kyle Moore as Joe and Faith Burns as Edna...

by Hank Nuwer Novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald won acclaim for two novels. The first was “This Side of Paradise” in 1920. It was a semi-autobiographical novel about a Princeton student who chases fleshly pleasures like the rest of his Lost Generation. The second was the...

Daredevil of the Skies,  Floyd Andrew DeHay, aka Frank Dorbrandt  By Hank Nuwer Alaska’s wide spaces, upper-level win currents, and landing fields in questionable condition made flying in pioneer days before World War Two required pilots with uncommon skill, guts and...

    By Hank Nuwer   Alaska’s native peoples called her “Big Girl” because she was tall and rugged as a logger. Others, whose lives she saved with grit, heart and sheer determination over more than a half-century, called her an angel or saint. Nurse and...

The Cordova Daily Times in 1923 devoted a page to student learning.  I selected at random the news for Feb. 10-17. 1923. The information remains interesting more than a century later. For starters, we learn that the faculty had only three teachers. School...

By Hank Nuwer When federal prisoner Frederick A. Cook was released from a Leavenworth prison in March of 1930, he had $50 in his billfold, which was, at age 65, his entire life savings.    His accomplishments in that long lifetime were considerable. And he once...

By Hank Nuwer.    From 1881 to 1917, most folks in Juneau referred to a popular baker by his nickname China Joe. He came to Juneau in search of gold dust after a strike on Gold Creek, but he lacked either aptitude or luck. He soon realized that real money was to be...

By Hank Nuwer   Today’s column addresses the attitudes of the American public and U.S. newspapers toward the limits of free speech before, during, and after wartime just over a century ago, 1916-1922.   There is a reason I took an interest in researching...