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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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Saturday
Nov152008

As I chat with the roadscraper, a Jehovah's Witness missionary appears and offers me truth

DateSaturday, November 15, 2008 at 4:23PM

I often see the roadscraper, clearing snow and ice as he drives our local streets. On yesterday's walk, I came upon him as he was enjoying a break. He opened up his door and started a friendly conversation.

His name is Ron Miller, and he is a friendly and conversational person, and I will not try to recount all that he told me. He has 102 miles of Matsu-Borough roads to scrape and over the past two-and-a-half days had put in 27 hours and still had most of this day left to go. He told me about what it takes to keep the scraper in good working order, and how, if a scraper gets careless, he can tear up a good stretch of pavement just like that.

Ron is a Vietnam veteran and served in both the Air Force and Army, in Intel. To this day, he says, few Americans know what really happened over there and have no idea of the tonnage of bombs that we dropped. He spoke of incredible numbers of bomb tonnage, packed into jets every day, dropped every day.

After we had chatted for awhile, a pickup with two men in it pulled up and stopped. This fellow introduced himself as Ryan and said he had something that I might be interested in: truth. He gave me this pamphlet that promised to introduce me to the truth. I asked him what religion he was and he said Jehovah's Witness. 

I put it in my pocket and planned to read it after I got home, so that I might share a bit of truth with anyone who reads this. But now I can't find it. It is lost. 

Truth and eternity remain a mystery to me.

I left Ron and Ryan behind and continued on my walk. Soon, I heard the sound of heavy steel scraping pavement. I turned around, it was Ron, making his way down his 102 mile route.

AuthorWasilla, Alaska, by 300 | Comment3 Comments |
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Reader Comments (3)

that close-up of Ron with his gestures and cigarette-smoke curl... classic.

November 15, 2008 | Unregistered Commenterkalaluka

And don't forget the "no smoking" sign behind his cigarette.

November 15, 2008 | Registered CommenterWasilla, Alaska, by 300

i had missed that! beautiful.

November 22, 2008 | Unregistered Commenterkalaluka

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