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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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Sunday
Feb152009

It was a day to crash: I looked out my hotel room window and walked back from Osaka Restaurant

DateSunday, February 15, 2009 at 11:09PM

That notion that I had that I would spend today sorting through a few of my Kivgiq images and then post some here was crazy. I am just too exhausted. I have crashed, here in my hotel room. I have not slept, but just crashed, falling into complete lazy mode. It has been pleasant. A bit of pointless net surfing; right now I am watching Blow Up on the tiny TV in this hotel room.

Funny, they had me in another room with a decent-sized TV all through Kivgiq but moved me here today. Of course, during Kivgiq I had no time to watch any TV at all.

Now I have no energy and need to relax and TV would be good, but the TV is tiny, and Blow Up doesn't work on a tiny TV.

I took only two pictures today, both with the pocket camera. The first is the view looking out my hotel room window in the Airport Inn.

The second was as I walked back to the hotel from the Osaka Restaurant, where I ordered Bento Box 3, which comes with terriyaki chicken, three pieces of sushi, lettuce salad, rice and tempura shrimp and vegetables. Pretty good.

I figured that I needed to shoot at least two pictures today and as I thought the thought, I pulled my camera up from under my parka and shot the nearest scene, and this is it.

I thought about calling somebody, going somewhere to visit, but I was just too tired.

I needed to crash and I did.

AuthorWasilla, Alaska, by 300 | Comment2 Comments |
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Reader Comments (2)

I'm sad that there aren't tons of pictures, but I'm happy that you've had such a wonderful time that you're resting happily. Sounds like an awesome party in the far north!

February 16, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterKelly Mitchell

It was indeed an awesome party and sometime within the next 48 hours or so I will yet post several pictures.

February 16, 2009 | Registered CommenterWasilla, Alaska, by 300

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