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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
Oct082010

News of Wainwright's first fall whale in over 100 years reaches Kaktovik

DateFriday, October 8, 2010 at 5:21PM

Yesterday afternoon, John Hopson, Jr. of Wainwright stepped to the podium to interrupt the regular proceedings of the Healthy Communities Summit in Kaktovik. He then announced that back in his home village, Iceberg 17, the whaling crew headed by Captain Walter Nayakik, Jr., had landed a bowhead. That's North Slope Borough Mayor Edward Itta, cheering. The crowd in front is cheering, too.

For as long as I have known the Arctic Slope and even long, long, before that, Wainwright hunters have consistently found success on their bowhead hunts - but these have been in the spring. Barrow, Nuiqsut and Kaktovik have been the only villages that have hunted in the fall, due to being situated in locations favorable for them to greet the bowhead on their migration from the Beaufort to the Bering Sea.

Some thought that a fall hunt could not successfully be carried out at Wainwright, but both the stories and physical evidence testified that, over 100 years ago, the people in Wainwright were landing fall whales. Now, they have landed another. Earlier in the day, we also received that the Savik crew from Barrow - they being the people who most often serve as my hosts when I stay there, had received a whale. I stayed at their house the night before I came over here to Kaktovik.

Savik had a need to go to the hospital in Anchorage the next day and as I sat at the dinner table with him, one of his daughters asked if the crew should still go out, since he would not be in Barrow. "Yes!" The next morning, just before he drove me to the airport to catch the plane to Kaktovik, Roy drove me down to the beach to look at the ocean.

The water had been rough and even now the waves were coming, but it was beginning to calm down. I just had this feeling that Roy would be out in that water with the crew shortly and that by the time I saw them again, they would have landed a whale. Since that announcement, four other Barrow crews have landed whales.

That's a total of five out of a fall quota of 12. I have photographed many things here at the summit and elsewhere in Kaktovik and have picked up some good stories, but, as I said at the beginning, I would not have much time for blogging while I was here so, for now, I let this announcement do it. Dinner has already started and after that - the Eskimo dance will begin. So I've got to close this blog down and get moving.

AuthorWasilla, Alaska, by 300 | Comment6 Comments |
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Reader Comments (6)

Walter Nayakik Jr.'s crew is Iceberg 17. Aarigaa the uunaalik was good, soft and yummy!!

October 8, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterCindy

Thanks for the correction, Cindy.

October 8, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterBill Hess

thanks for the report of this exciting news, bill!

October 9, 2010 | Unregistered Commenterruth z deming

Anne, I have not found another source of such news of the area - thanks - this is great!

October 12, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterAussieAlaskan

aarigaa the whale was the softest...it tasted very great....this is Burton T. Nayakik and the food from the whale is my life i am 14 years old

October 15, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterBurton T. Nayakik

What a spectacular photograph! One of my favorites. Thank you.

November 19, 2010 | Unregistered Commenterfrankie

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