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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
Sep232009

Cocoon mode* - day 14: Three shots of the road through a rainy window

DateWednesday, September 23, 2009 at 6:47AM

I was driving along, the temperature was 38 degrees and the rain was coming down hard, when I noticed that every now and then, a drop of rain would seem to shatter when it struck my windshield. It could only shatter if it had ice crystals in it. I thought maybe it did, I thought maybe it was a soggy snowflake. 

I could not be certain, as immediately after it would happen my windshield wiper would sweep it away before I could examine it.

So I turned the windshield wiper off, to see if I could determine whether or not the raindrops that seemed to shatter were actually soggy snowflakes.

And then I noticed that everything looked pretty neat, with the windshield wipers off, so I took a few pictures.

I know... looking at these little images this must look insanely dangerous, but the road was clearly distinguished to my eye even if not to the pocket camera and I never took my eye off of the road, which, furthermore, I saw in three dimensions rather than the two that you see here, so don't get upset and start calling me a lunatic. In fact, I had both hands upon the steering wheel, as I had braced the back of the pocket camera against the top front of the wheel in such a way that my fingers pulled the camera tight against the wheel even as my thumb gripped it.

So calm down. 

Just before I pulled into my driveway, a drop shattered that did, indeed, appear to have ice crystals in it. However, before I could determine for certain, other raindrops came and swept it away. I'm hoping that it snows down here in the valley tonight, but it probably won't.

I heard on the radio that it is supposed to snow in Colorado tonight.

That would be awful.

According to Jason Ahmaogak's Facebook wall, it snowed in Wainwright a couple of days ago and everything was freezing up. He was excited - pretty soon he will be snowmachining.

 

*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 | Comment3 Comments |
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Reader Comments (3)

I LOVED these photos. Thanks!

September 23, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterGrandma Nancy

I was very excited to see the termination dust on the mtns. I am one of those who loves the snow, and the earlier the better. And it did indeed snow in CO. My family lives there, and they had to rub it in that they saw snow before I did. Last laugh at them though, as they are forecast temps in the high 70's, low 80's at the end of the week.

September 23, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterLisaJ

Thank you, Grandma Nancy.

Lisa, no matter how much Coloradans may wish it or even believe it to be, Colorado will never be Alaska.

September 24, 2009 | Registered CommenterWasilla, Alaska, by 300

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