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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
Jul202009

The departure from Point Hope, back toward Barrow

DateMonday, July 20, 2009 at 11:50PM

When it came time to leave Point Hope, I caught a ride on the back of Mayor Steve Oomittuk's four-wheeler and we headed toward the airstrip. We had not gone far at all when Conrad Killigvuk came toward us with a smile and an outstretched hand.

We stopped, I shook Conrad's hand and then took this picture. He told me the baby's name but, darn, I have forgotten. He also asked for a copy of the picture. So maybe someone in Point Hope can direct him to it, have him click it to pop up a larger copy and then download it.

Or maybe you could download it and take it to him.

When we landed in Point Hope four days earlier and boarded the school bus that took us into the village, we saw this sign of welcome.

Just as I was getting ready to board the plane, Othniel Anaqulutuq Oomittuk Jr, "Art" the very fine sculptor and artist who created it from part of the boatskin that covered the umiak of Popsy Tingook, drove up in the senior to drop off a few Elders scheduled to return to Barrow on the same flight as me.

I asked the pilot to wait just a minute so that I could run over to the sign and take this picture of Art with his creation of welcome. The supporting frame is made from the jawbones of a bowhead whale.

And always, every minute that I spent in Tikigaq was one of welcome.

And then the Beechcraft turned from Point Hope and pointed its nose towards Barrow, 330 miles to the northeast.

Now... I had said that I would try to post a little bit of explanation and run down on the Arctic Economic Development Summit, but the fact is, I simply do not have the time - just as I have not had time to post but the tiniest hint of the photos that I have shot and the stories that I have gathered on this trip.

The project that I am working on is a huge one and does not leave me much time for the blog.

Counting this one, I have five more nights on the Slope and then I head home. I will then go into production mode on this project and that will include a serious edit of all the pictures that I have taken, and a cobbling together of the stories.

This won't leave me much time for the blog, either, but maybe I can dovetail my production work with this blog a bit and do a little catching, just the same.

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Reader Comments (1)

Thank you so much for posting your photos. I feel like you are a friend sharing your family, your friends, Alaska and your love of photography with the world and we are all brought that much closer together.

July 21, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterGrandma Nancy

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