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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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Wednesday
Jun172009

I pass by a series of modest calamities, and then wind up at Taco Bell

DateWednesday, June 17, 2009 at 10:09PM

Calamity Number 1: A four-wheeler is broken down, less than two blocks into my journey. I do not know what the problem is, but it looks pretty bad.

Calamity Number 2: Somebody's hood is open. There is a gas can on the ground by the red car. This is a perplexing combination. I can't figure it out. This happened less than one mile from my house.

Calamity Number 3: A tire has gone flat. A man fills it from a can as a woman observes while smoking a cigarette. This happened right in the Taco Bell parking lot.

A lady two vehicles ahead places her order as I think of inept calvary men. This is the Palmer Taco Bell, by the way. They tore the Wasilla one down while I was in India. When I left on that trip, I had this feeling that something bad would happen before I came home. Sure enough, it did. Margie thinks they had a fire in there, but is not certain.

Some people choose to eat inside. Me, I choose to sit in the car and eat outside.

The man ahead of me gets his order. I grow impatient with hunger.

He gives me my Pepsi. It is only my second Pepsi this week, so its okay that it is a large one. Plus, I am riding my bike a lot.

This is why I chose to eat outside, and not inside. I don't know why anyone would want to eat inside.

And then this worker comes to throw away trash. He is very thrilled to have the opportunity to be in my blog.

I get to witness the action. If I had eaten inside, I would have missed this.

Back in Wasilla, I see two dogs through a dirty windshield. A man walks with them.

Such is life in the Far North - well, the southern part of the Far North.

I will get back to blogging India. I just don't have time, right now. I don't even have time for this. That's why I drove to Taco Bell in the first place, because I did not have time to make a sandwich for lunch. And there was no ham.

I think it will take me all summer to blog my two weeks in India. Maybe a year. I will blog it, though - else why did I even take all those pictures?

AuthorWasilla, Alaska, by 300 | Comment3 Comments |
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Reader Comments (3)

Hi Bill, I absolutely love your blog which I've posted under my Blogroll. I found it quite by accident. I had just bought my first "Mother of the Groom" dress and googled the phrase. Up popped your magnificent photos of the wedding in India. That's how I found you.

I went to AK when I was a young lass of 20. Had a grand time in Sitka, Fairbanks and Anchorage. I still have my Polaroids. Somewhere.

I'm about to do another blogpost now and may start out by citing the magnificent poem Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold, whose laments on the difficulty and perfidy of life ring so true today as they have when "Sophocles looked out over the Aegean."

Best regards to you, Bill, your family and your wonderful blog, from me in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, a quiet green tree-filled suburb of Philadelphia with glorious parks and meadows but no mountains.

Ruth Z Deming

June 18, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterRuth Z Deming

Thank you, Ruth in Willow Grove, PA. I will jump over to your blog promptly.

June 18, 2009 | Registered CommenterWasilla, Alaska, by 300

Ruth - I tried to leave a couple of comments on your blog, but it wouldn't let. It is a fun read. I have now added a link to it.

June 19, 2009 | Registered CommenterWasilla, Alaska, by 300

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