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
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...
Casey Dog the wonder
Where to start my tale? With my dog’s near-death experience, his intestines neatly sawed in five parts? No, too grim. I want to tell you what made my dog Casey so special, but what to say? I have no heroic rescue to recount. No climactic moment to recall when my...
Wiley Post: From Outlaw to Aviator and Showman of the Skies
by Hank Nuwer At age 22, an Oklahoma boy from a good family went bad. This happened in 1921 when he decided to arrange a highway robbery near his home in Chickasha, Oklahoma. He stashed an obstruction on the road between Ninnekah and Chickasha, forcing...