Top
A blog by Bill Hess

Running Dog Publications

P.O. Box 872383 Wasilla, Alaska 99687

 

All photos and text © Bill Hess, unless otherwise noted 
All support is appreciated
Bill Hess's other sites
Search
Navigation
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.

Blog archive
Blog arhive - page view
« Lifted by the song; darkness coming on - for awhile, anyway | Main | At Ted Stevens International, headed to Kaktovik, via overnight in Barrow »
Wednesday
Oct062010

Here I am, in Kaktovik, attending the Healthy Communities Summit

DateWednesday, October 6, 2010 at 3:04PM

I have arrived in Kaktovik. I am at the Healthy Communities Summit and the summit has begun. My post will be brief - just to let readers know that I am here. After we landed this morning, I saw this snowplow, clearing the runway.

This is the Waldo Arms Hotel. I am not staying here, but Big Bob Aiken of Barrow was driving me around along with some young people who have come up from Utah and they wanted to get something to eat, so we dropped them off at the Waldo Arms - where the hamburgers are said to be superb.

It has been years - perhaps over a decade - since I last ate a Waldo Arms hamburger, but it was pretty good then, too.

A school bus, passing by, the Beaufort Sea in the background. There are polar bears out on the spit that you see, but this is too far away for me to get a picture. Maybe I will get a chance to get out there before I leave. Kaktovik, for those who don't know, is on Barter Island. It is also the only village located within the boundaries of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Those are not students in the bus, but people from other communities who have flown in for the summit.

I will be very busy here and probably won't have much time for this blog, but I will try to post a little something, every day.

 

View images as slides

they will appear larger and look better

AuthorWasilla, Alaska, by 300 | Comment4 Comments |
in , , , ,

PrintView Printer Friendly Version

EmailEmail Article to Friend

Reader Comments (4)

I google mapped it! Good luck Bill!

October 6, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterMichelle

Thanks for the photos! I spent eight summers in Kaktovik in the late 70's and early 80's. I hope you get some pictures of the Kaktovik people; I will scrutinize them for old friends and acquaintances. I loved being at the edge of the continent.

October 6, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterEllen

enjoy your stay

October 7, 2010 | Unregistered Commentertwain12

Kalib will enjoy the pic of the bus ;)

October 7, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterJfH

PostPost a New Comment

Enter your information below to add a new comment.
Author Email (optional):
Author URL (optional):
Post:
 
Some HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
Alert
Comment Moderation Enabled
Your comment will not appear until it has been cleared by a website editor.

Notify me of follow-up comments via email.