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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
Feb092009

A dog named Shadrach - the missionaries wanted him to protect them from the fire in the firey furnace, but Hobart wouldn't allow it

DateMonday, February 9, 2009 at 12:30AM

I now back up to January 28, when Margie and I were at my sister's house in Salt Lake City, where we had stopped to allow Margie to recover a bit before continuing on to Anchorage. The character with Mary Ann is Shadrach, her blue healer, border-collie friend.

Shadrach is crazy. Mary Ann loves him greatly.

I called him, "Hobart." Mary Ann did not like that, but Hobart did. He came right to me, tail wagging.

Mary Ann and Shadrack fight over a ball. Hobart wanted to get that ball, so that he could give it to me.

In the afternoon, I took Shadrach out for a little walk. We soon happened upon two Mormon missionaires, one named Meshach, the other, Abednego. I am not lying! I could never make such a thing up!

The missionaires were greatly relieved to see Shadrach. A really hot lady had threatened to throw them into a firey furnace if they ever knocked on her door again. They said it would be okay, if Shadrach was with them. With Shadrach, they could just walk around in that firey furnace and they wouldn't even suffer a blister.

So I told them that Shadrach was really Hobart. They got depressed and walked away. What good would it do, to get thrown into a firepit with Hobart? Whoever heard of Hobart, Meshach and Abednego walking around unburnt in a firey furnace?

Monday afternoon, I leave for Barrow. I just checked current weather there: temperature, -39; windchill, -63. The welcome will be warm and I look forward to Kivgiq, but I hate to leave Margie.

And what has happened to all my good Arctic gear, the clothing that used to keep me alive up there? It has all disappeared, or fallen apart.

I think a cat peed on my parka, and that is what caused it to fall apart.

Well, it was old and worn anyway.

But what do I do now?

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