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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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Friday
Sep042009

Steve Heimel - radio reporter and program host, keeps people driving after they would have shut their cars down

DateFriday, September 4, 2009 at 12:23AM

This is Steve Heimel and he bears a great deal of personal responsibility for the increasing pace of global warming and the next fuel shortage. Steve is a radio reporter and program host for the Alaska Public Radio Network and he keeps people in their cars, driving, long after they would have parked and shut down their engines, were it not for him.

How many times have I myself been driving, headed home, listening to Talk of Alaska on KSKA when Steve has asked a guest a pointed question that I would never have thought of and then sparked and moderated a discussion involving people from every region of this far-flung state that I simply could not pull myself away from, so I have driven on, spewing green house gas, burning gasoline.

And how many Sundays have I been headed home, intent on parking and getting out of the car as fast as I can, listening as Steve hosts Truck Stop on KNBA. All of a sudden, he's got Johnny Cash doing Fulsom Prison Blues and then maybe Hank Williams wailing about the tear in his beer because he's crying for you, dear, followed by Woody Guthrie declaring this land to be my land and his land.

Who can stop their car and turn off the radio in such a situation?

I sure can't. So I drive on, even as millions upon millions of other Alaskans do the same thing.

We are all helpless. We cannot shut our cars down. It's Steve's fault.

This picture is from earlier tonight, when I saw him at the "Send Congress back to DC with a Message" at Romig Middle School in Anchorage. The event was held to give Senators Mark Begich and Lisa Murkowski a pro-health care reform message as they return to Washington DC for the next session of Congress.

Before the event got under way, Steve mused about the unbelievable fact that he is 66 years old. Listen to him on the radio. He sounds like a young man.

It has been a long, busy day and I am exhausted and must go to bed, so I am going to put my pictures from that event into the queue, where they now compete with Kalib at the fair.

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

It is all so very true... Thanks Bill

September 4, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterWendy Warnick

healthcare rocks

April 23, 2010 | Unregistered Commenterriana

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