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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
Jun272009

Need to try to get a few hours sleep - hope to find time to post some Point Lay Nalukatak photos Sunday (part 4 of 10)

DateSaturday, June 27, 2009 at 2:11AM

I just grabbed this photo without even trying to take a look at my take - a take that is, in fact, still downloading and has quite a ways to go. It is Nita, Uavauq, Kuoiqsik, who have just been served "mikigaq" from the Atkaan whale. Mikigaq is fermented whale meat and maktak. Maktak is skin with blubber still attached.

When I got today's first taste, I thought that I had gone to heaven. It was exquisite - so good. Perhaps because I haven't had any for awhile, but I have always loved mikigaq since I first tried it nearly three decades ago  but I don't ever remember it tasting better than it did today.

Remember when, just before noon, I headed toward the Nalukatak grounds and estimated that I would be working out there for the next 12 to 14 hours? Right now, it has been 13 hours and 53 minutes - and I just got back from the shoot.

I must catch a morning Frontier Flying Service flight which will take me almost directly over Wainwright and into Barrow. Once I get to Barrow, I must almost immediately get back on another Frontier flight so that I can fly back to Wainwright. When there was competition among air carriers here, it wasn't like that. You could get on a plane in Point Lay and get off in Wainwright - and that is the fare that you would pay, Wainwright to Point Lay.

Now they make you pay Point Lay to Barrow, then pay the full Barrow to Wainwright fare.

And those fares are much more than they used to be.

It is very aggravating.

I need to get my own airplane again.

That was the best yet.

My hope is that Sunday I can find some time to do pull out some representative images from the Nalukatak that I just covered and post them.

So please come back.

 

AuthorWasilla, Alaska, by 300 | Comment1 Comment |
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Reader Comments (1)

Damn, that sound's so easy if you think about it.

July 13, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterProfessional-IQ

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