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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
Mar212009

On the day that Mike Williams drives his dogs into Nome, a lady gives me a biscuit for Muzzy; a dog rides in a car in front of me

DateSaturday, March 21, 2009 at 8:54PM

I checked the Anchorage Daily News Iditarod standings webpage and discovered that Mike Williams drove his dogs over the finish line in Nome today at 2:17 PM, to finish 41st overall.

Today, I had planned to post the story that I promised when I posted the images of Mike and his dogs taking off at the Willow restart. I did some work on that post, too, but then ran out of time. I plan to post it tomorrow.

In the image above, taken in the summer of 2000, Mike holds some newborn pups at his dog lot in Akiak. When I look at this picture, I wonder if any of these pups made the team when they grew up? If so, such pups would likely be retired now.

One day, I will show Mike this picture and ask him.

And this is Carly, the clerk at the new Tesoro station on the corner of Seldon and Church, 1.5 miles from the house. Jacob, Kalib, Muzzy and I had just walked there.

I went in to buy some Pepsi, while the other three waited outside. Carly spotted them and gave me the biscuit.

"Do you give biscuits to everybody who comes by with a dog?" I asked.

"Pretty much," she answered.

I guess I will have to buy gas there, sometime soon.

And this is the dog that I spotted on the road in front of me, while going down Lucille Street. Its name is Frederick(a) von Appleburger. I don't know why anyone would give a dog such a name.

And here is Kalib, who fell asleep on the walk. He stayed asleep, in his stroller, for maybe two hours after his dad brought him in.

The walk was a chilly one. It was -11 (-24 C) at the house when we got up this morning. By the walk, the temperature had warmed to above zero, but the wind was brisk.

Kalib never seemed to mind at at all.

 

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