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A blog by Bill Hess

Running Dog Publications

P.O. Box 872383 Wasilla, Alaska 99687

 

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Wasilla

Wasilla is the place where I have lived for the past 29 years - sort of. The house in which my wife and I raised our family sits here, but I have made my rather odd career as a different sort of photojournalist by continually wandering off to other places to photograph people and gather information, which I have then put together in various publications that have served the Alaska Native Eskimo, Indian and Aleut communities.

Although I did not have a great of free time to devote to this rather strange community, named after a Tanaina Athabascan Indian chief who knew Wasilla in the way that I so impossibly long to, I have still documented it regularly over the past quarter-century plus. In the early days, my Wasilla photographs focused mostly upon my children and the events they participated in - baseball, football, figure skating, hockey, frog catching, fire cracker detonation, Fourth of July parade - that sort of thing. 

In 2002, I purchased my first digital camera and then, whenever I was home, I began to photograph Wasilla upon a daily basis, but not in a conventional way. These were grab shots - whatever caught my eye as I took my many long walks or drove through the town, shooting through the car window at people and scenes that appeared and disappeared before I could even focus and compose in the traditional photographic way.

Thus, the Wasilla portion of this blog will be devoted both to the images that I take as I wander about and those that I have taken in the past. Despite the odd, random, nature of the images, I believe they communicate something powerful about this town that I have never seen expressed anywhere else. 

Wasilla is a sprawling community that has been slapped down hodge-podge upon what was so recently wilderness of the most exquisite beauty. In its design, it is deliberately anti-zoned, anti-planned. In the building of Wasilla, the desire to make a buck has trumped aesthetics and all other considerations. This town, built in the midst of exquisite beauty, has largely become an unsightly, unattractive, mess of urban sprawl. Largely because of this, it often seems to me that Wasilla is a community with no sense of community, a town devoid of town soul.

Yet - Wasilla is my home and if I am lucky it will be until I grow old and die. Despite its horrific failings, it is still made of the stuff of any small city: people; moms and dads, grammas and grampas, teens, children, churches, bars, professionals, laborers, soldiers, missionaries, artists, athletes, geniuses, do-gooders, hoodlums, the wealthy, the homeless, the rational and logical, the slightly insane and the wholly insane - and, yes, as is now obvious to the whole world, politicians, too.

So perhaps, if one were to search hard enough, it might just be possible to find a sense of community here, and a town soul. So, using my skills as a photojournalist and a writer, I hope to do just that. If this place has a sense of community, I will find it. If there is a town soul to Wasilla, I will document it. I won't compete with the newspapers. Hell no! But as time and income allow, it will be fun to wander into the places where the folks described above gather, and then put what I find on this blog.

 

by 300...

Anywhere within a 300 mile radius of Wasilla. This encompasses perhaps the most wild, dramatic, gorgeous, beautiful section of land and sea to be found in any comparable space anywhere on Earth. I can never explore it all, but I will do the best that I can, and will here share what I find and experience with you.  

and then some...

Anywhere else in the world that I happen to get to, such as Point Lay, Alaska; Missoula, Montana; Serenki, Chukotka, Russia; or Bangalore, India. Perhaps even Lagos, Nigeria. I have both a desire and scheme to get me there. It is a long shot. We shall see if I succeed.

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Monday
Oct062008

This time, we did breakfast at IHOP

DateMonday, October 6, 2008 at 1:37PM

  

Jacob loves IHOP corn pancakes and so it has become a Sunday tradition that we meet there for breakfast. As usual, I stepped out the door to start walking, even though the Wasilla IHOP is over five miles from our house. I saw this new snow embedded in the frost that settled down on Caleb's old car - the car that doesn't run anymore.

The plan was for Jacob and Lavina to come and pick me up after I had walked a couple of miles. Then we would go wait at IHOP for a table. Hopefully, we would have one by the time Margie took her lunch break and came to meet us. This is not Jacob and Lavina in the mini-van. I don't know who it is.

These two kids came walking in the opposite direction. I told them what I was doing and they proved to be very friendly. "Have a nice day," they smiled as they continued on in their direction and I, mine. In one of her bright and witty columns, humorist Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, disparaged Wasilla, for among other things, being a place without sidewalks. She forgot to mention our great bike trails.

 

 

Her dog died of cancer. After I walked for somewhat less than two miles, I turned around and was surprised to see Jacob and Muzzy, jogging toward me. Shortly afterward, we crossed the street and came upon this woman. She, too, had kept a giant dog, but it had come down with cancer. It grew so miserable and pathetic that she had it have it euthanized. She felt pretty badly about that.

I still feel bad about Willow and that was what, four years ago?

Lavina picked us up in the Tahoe. We had to wait for about five minutes for a table.

Kalib charms people, wherever we go.

Jake was dismayed. "Corn pancakes have been removed from our menu," the waitress told him after he ordered some. Perhaps the tradition will change now.

Breakfast at IHOP in contemporary times.

Muzzy gets his share.

The dog that tried to kill the bunny. Remember the rooster? The one that got shot at the place where the chicken crossed the road? This dog lives there as well, as does a bunny. Last June, shortly after my second surgery, the one where I got the new shoulder, I had barely begun my walk when I saw this dog break into the bunny pen, drag the bunny out, take it across the street and then begin to kill it.

In my condition, I was helpless to rescue the bunny. The children of the dog and bunny's people were bouncing on a trampoline in sight of everything, laughing and having a great time, completely unaware.

"Your dog is killing your rabbit!" I shouted. They did not hear. I shouted again and again and again as I drew closer. Finally, they heard. By the time they rescued the rabbit, it was very still and looked dead, but one of the boys told me later that it had survived and was doing fine.

I step into the house and find Martigny on the couch.

At 4:00 PM, I drive back to Wal-Mart to pick Margie up from work. Lavina is in the car with me. She wants to get coffee.

When we get to Wal-Mart, I am surprised to see Lisa there with Margie. She has driven up from Anchorage. She leaves her car in the parking lot and gets into ours. She wants to get coffee, too.

Tony the baristo. He is new. I have never seen him before. I wish him well, and tell him how to find this blog, so that he can see his picture.

Lisa and Jim. (Lisa wants it to be clear that the face poking out from her shirt is Joe Biden's - not John McCains.)

Our backyard. As dusk settled in, it began to snow.

In the woodstove, birch logs become heat. We used to cut all our own wood, but then I no longer had time for it. Now we buy. Just two winters ago, $100 a cord. Now, $200 - and, I tell you, those cords looked to me to be less than a cord used to be.

I am quite certain of it.

As she watches Desperate Housewives, Lavina gets herself some sherbert. Kalib wants some.

Kalib got some. I wanted some, too. I didn't get any. That bowl was the last of the sherbert.

Jacob tosses Kalib around.

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Reader Comments (2)

I feel like anyone who reads this should know that my shirt is NOT a pro-McCain shirt, and that it is in fact Joe Biden.

October 6, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterLisa

amazing - i just photographed a fire last week also. I'll send you one of the images. small world between the 49th and 50th states.

SO glad to hear your shoulder is doing better!! And happy that Lisa's shirt is an Obama/Biden shirt, and not the other. heh.

October 10, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterSarah Kalaluka
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