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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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« I attend the grand opening of the Metro Cafe, where Wasilla's mayor shows up with big scissors and a young girl gathers pennies to aid a classmate stricken by leukemia | Main | Cocoon mode* - day 11: Old man charges up steep grade on four-wheeler and then charges back down again; fall from the car »
Sunday
Sep202009

Cocoon mode* - day 12: Kalib and Caleb pedal off on their bikes to listen to Peggy Sue

DateSunday, September 20, 2009 at 11:58AM

So I stepped outside and there was Kalib, sitting on his bike, like he was going somewhere - Texas, maybe.

Then Caleb came along. "Nephew," he said. "Let's go! The open road awaits!" Little Kalib's legs were too short for him to properly pedal, so he propelled himself by chugging with his feet.

Off they went. Soon they disappeared. I went back into the house to read the newspaper. Later in the afternoon, my cell phone vibrated and shook. It was them. They had called to let me know that they had gotten a little carried away and had pedaled all the way to Texas - Lubbock, to be precise, where they had gone to pay tribute to Buddy Holly.

They had called from Lubbock's famous Buddy Holly Bar and I could hear "Peggy Sue" in the background, mingled with the sounds of random gunfire and brawling.

Trouble was, they were too tired to pedal back home. 

I sighed, climbed into the Escape, drove to Lubbock, picked them up and brought them back home.

It was not at all how I had intended to spend my afternoon, but I could not leave them stranded in Lubbock, Texas, even if the entertainment was good.

 

*Cocoon mode: Until I finish up a big project that I am working on, I am keeping this blog at bare-minimum simple. I anticipate about one month.

AuthorWasilla, Alaska, by 300 | Comment2 Comments |
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Reader Comments (2)

Lucky that Caleb had Kalib to protect him. Sounds like a pretty rough place. Does Kalib pack heat? Maybe he should consider it when traveling with Uncle Caleb.

September 20, 2009 | Unregistered Commenterdebby

The fall is so pleasant! I love it!

September 21, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterSandy

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