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
The Man Behind the Stutz
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...
From Felon to Hero to Accused Criminal again: Floyd Andrew DeHay, aka Frank Dorbrandt
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...
Mildred Keaton: The Nurse of the Arctic
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...
What They Learned in School That Week By Hank Nuwer
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...
Dr. Frederick A. Cook, Author, Humanitarian and Disgraced Adventurer
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...
China Joe: A One-of-a-Kind Alaska Pioneer.
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...
Freedom to speak one’s conscience vanished in World War One
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...
A tragic death in Cordova
A fatal mistake By Hank Nuwer - October 18, 2024 Photo by Erik Mclean/ Unsplash Jeanette Corser was a popular student growing up in Cordova. She liked writing and contributed tidbits about school events and life to the Cordova Daily Times. Her parents, Beatrice May...
Do hazing death chapters come back?
From 2000 to 2002, these hazing death fraternity chapters were suspended or prohibited from operating. How many are back in 2025? One sorority lost its chapter. It has not returned. 16 chapters lost their charter. One lost it one more time after coming back.11...