A blog by Bill Hess

Running Dog Publications

P.O. Box 872383 Wasilla, Alaska 99687

 

All photos and text © Bill Hess, unless otherwise noted 
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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
Nov142009

Catch up* Part 6: Kalib potpourri

Okay. This will be the final day that I revisit recent pictures that I did not post when I shot them but instead waited until Thursday, November 5, after I had fallen ill. I might as well end this catch-up series with a Kalib potpourri. Here he is, on the couch.

I worry that perhaps some of my regulars will have grown weary of this journey through the recent past by now, but I know there is a group of people down in Arizona Navajo/Apache country who cannot get enough Kalib images. 

Actually, this one dates all the way back to September. Just about every day since then, Jacob has asked me if I am ever going to post it. We went out to eat at Jalepeno's, where Kalib dipped his chip in the salsa. He must have liked it, because...

...he then picked up the bowl and began to drink the salsa. He drank quite a bit, too.

Kalib with some of my fish. The little outfit that he wears has ears.

Kalib did not like it at all when the ears came up. This reminded me of the bunny-rabbit pj scene from the classic film, A Christmas Story.

Kalib and Margie.

They had been to a thrift store a short time earlier, where they bought this very noisy ambulance. Each time that he set it off, I had to look in my rearview mirror.

One day, as I drove back home from somewhere, I saw these three ahead of me. By the time this appears on my blog, more than a full week will have passed since I typed these words - I sure hope all this bare gound is now, at long last, covered in snow. I hope my project is done - at least to the client review stage.

Perhaps I am not even in Wasilla anymore. Perhaps I somewhere else.

If so, where could that be?

*Although I have scheduled this to appear Saturday, November 14, I actually made this post on Thursday, November 5. There are two reasons for this: 1: whatever bug it is that has got me down has left me unable to concentrate to the degree that I must to do my work. 2: The project that I have been working on is very nearly done, but I have never brought such a project to a close without going full-bore, night and day, on it at the end, distracted by no other tasks, including this blog.

So, before I go to bed, I am going to put up several days worth of posts from photos that I have recently taken but have not used. Then, for the next several days, I will not blog, I will stay away from the internet as much as possible and just bear down on getting this job done - but my posts will keep coming.

 

Addendum: One Kalib image from today:

Here is Kalib a bit after 8:00 AM, caught in my headlights as I return home from a breakfast at Family Restaurant and he gets ready to go into Anchorage with his parents to spend the day at daycare.

Last night, I had thought that I could get by without taking any more medicine for whatever it is that has been ailing me. Big mistake. I coughed and coughed, all through the night, or at least that part of the night that spent in bed.

Having got to bed about 1:00 AM, and then after going to sleep having been woken up every few minutes by my coughing, I woke up for good at 5:00 AM. I did not want to believe it and so tried mighty hard to go back to sleep, but finally gave up about 6:00 AM and got up. I then came out to my computer to make a quick check the news, various blogs and such, then went to Family.

Later in the day, we went to Anchorage to celebrate Rex's birthday. I do have pictures that I want to blog, but I am too tired right now. It is midnight. I am going to take some medicine and see if I can sleep tonight. I have been coughing all day long and have a bad sideache and my throat is very sore.

I hope it is clear to everyone that when I say this addendum image is from today, I refer to the day that I have just lived, the day that is now ending. I have this post scheduled to come up at 4:00 AM which means that you, the viewer, will not see today's addendum image until tomorrow, by which time today's image will have been taken yesterday.

Still, at the time that I write the addendum, the statement was accurate.

Even now, as accurate as the statement is, it is now inaccurate, for the clock just passed midnight, which means it is now tomorrow, but of course it is never tomorrow, it is always today. Yesterday it was today and tomorrow it will be today.

But then you know that, don't you?

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Reader Comments (5)

Um...what??!!

November 14, 2009 | Unregistered Commenterdebby

Last time I had a cough that wouldn't go away the clinic said "bronchitis" and gave me an Albuterol inhaler...it worked. I slept, I recovered and it's been a year and a half since the last knock me down coughing cold.

Even this non kid person likes the continuing adventures of Kalib!

November 14, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterKelly

It looks still dark at 8 a.m.! Wowsers!
I personally can't get enough of Kalib. He's the perfect subject! Full of life and the fun part of kids :) When they want to check out everything. Ahhh, good days...
You get better soon! Take your medicine!!

November 14, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterMikey

I cant tell you how hard I laughed at Kalib drinking the salsa. That was classic!! Hope you feel better soon. I have a lingering cough, but no where near as bad as you. Get healthy soon.

November 14, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterLisaJ

Well, the cough is not so bad tonight, although it is still there.

As for it being still dark at 8:00 AM, up in Barrow, in just three days, the sun will rise for the last time until January 22.

November 15, 2009 | Registered CommenterWasilla, Alaska, by 300

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