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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
Nov282009

I take a walk on a warm, dim and snowy day

DateSaturday, November 28, 2009 at 4:02AM

I woke up late this morning to discover that it was a warm day - right up near freezing. Soon it started to snow. This is how it looked when I took my walk, a little after 1:00 PM.

As long as it doesn't get any warmer, it will be fine. As I sit down to write this, the temperature stands at 25 degrees. The humidity is 93 percent. I want to note this, because what people always like to say about Alaska is, well, your cold is a dry cold.

And that's true. When it gets truly cold, the air is always dry, because it loses its ability to hold moisture. Moisture freezes right out of it. But when the temperatures rise to warm cold, then we get humidity, too.

Snowmachine rider and dog coming down the Wards Road hill. When I was far away, they kept going up the hill and then they would turn around and come right back down again. I had hoped they would keep it up until I drew close, so that I could get the expression on the dog's face as its legs churned and its little lungs damn near burst, but they didn't.

This was their very last trip down the hill - and this is a tight crop from a much broader horizontal image.

The view from the top of the Wards Road hill.

Now, I have a big task to which I must fully devote myself for at least the next three days, maybe longer. My entries in that time will be very simple, like this one, maybe even simpler.

This makes me a little sad, because the hits to this blog have been steadily on the increase and now I must give some of it up.

Oh, well. When I start back up again, I will hopefully be ahead of where I was the last time I had to stop and restart.

And I do have some big plans for this blog. No resources to do it, but the plans are there and the ideas as to how to go about it have been taking shape.

The resources will come from somewhere. I have no idea where, but they will come.

All I have to do is build it.

Then they will come.

Hmmmm......?

AuthorWasilla, Alaska, by 300 | Comment5 Comments |
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Reader Comments (5)

Reading your posts makes me thankful I live in the lower 48. Although it seems every male I know has said at some time or another, "I'd like to live in Alaska." I must not be adventurous. I'd rather live here than almost anywhere, Alaska or otherwise.

Having written that preamble, I must say, I am enjoying your daily browse around Wasilla. And the friendly faces.

November 28, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterWhiteStone

Go Bill!........Go Bill!.......Go Bill!........Go Bill!

November 28, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterMGSoCal

I'm with MG. You go! Ask Bush Babe and Mikey about the advertising on their site. The other thing that I meant to tell you is that you said that most of your pictures are not 'wall hangers'. Well, jeepers, Bill! You live in the midst of some of the most beautiful scenery there is! Maybe you need to take some 'wall hangers'. Maybe you need to sell them. Because, really, you're a pretty good picture taker. CHEESE!

November 28, 2009 | Unregistered Commenterdebby

Hi Bill! I will visit your blog with short posts or long posts, doesn't matter. It's all good.

November 28, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterMichelle

Whitestone - If everybody loved Alaska like I do, it would be a hard place to live in because everybody would be here. But truthfully, the thought of living full-time anywhere but Alaska depresses me, like I am putting on a straight jacket.

MGSoCal - I will! I will go!

Debby - Thanks for the encouragement. When I get time, I am going to explore all these things.

Michelle - :)

November 28, 2009 | Registered CommenterWasilla, Alaska, by 300

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