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.
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.
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.
Friday, April 24, 2009 at 11:56PM I hate to make a post without pics - and I shot quite a few today, 16 gb worth, but I have just begun to run them into my laptop and I am stuffed full of bowhead whale uunaalik (boiled blubber and skin) and chocolate chip cookies and I am exhausted and just have to go to bed.
Reader Comments (4)
Every time I've happened on your blog/pictorial essay/diary in my long list of favorite Alaska blogs, I've enjoyed your pictures and what you've had to say.
Your last few entries are perfect examples of how skilled and imaginative you are in telling the story of the First People who allow you to photograph them.
I hope you never get tired, REALLY tired, of putting your work and your thoughts up here on the Internet for people like me to find and appreciate.
Thanks!
P.S. I've loved the ongoing story of little Kalib. I first found your blog when he'd had the encounter with the cat...
mmm.. chocolate chip cookies...
Hi Bill, get some rest before it opens up. tThe lead is starting to open herel.
maak & larry
Hi Maak and Larry!
You found my blog! Thanks for writing. It's very warm in Barrow, I'm not certain, but I still hope to drop by Wainwright sometime this week. Can't stay for long as I soon leave for India. My hunting parka has fallen apart and my fall injuries are still giving me some problems that will make ice travel difficult.
But maybe I can figure a way!
Thanks for the comments, Miss Sunshine and Karen. For whatever reason, I seem to be tired 100 percent of the time these days, but it is not being tired of work. Since my accident, I have almost never got a good night's sleep, except for a very few times.
It is catching up to me.