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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
Nov192010

Barrow's final sunrise/sunset of 2010: five views

DateFriday, November 19, 2010 at 4:00AM

This is the view from Browerville during yesterday's lunch hour, looking directly south across the middle lagoon at the rising/setting sun. While the sun did rise above what would be the horizon on a perfectly clear day, it did not manage to make it above the low band of clouds to the south. During the half hour or so that it was up, I took a slow walk along and near the lagoon.

Now the sun will be gone from Barrow until January 22.

View # Two.

View # 3.

View # 4: that is the Piuraagvik Rec Center to left and the Yupiqpak ice-skating arena to the right.

I am in Barrow for the Uqapiaqta! Let's Speak in Iñupiaq! Elders and Youth Conference. Very near to the end of today's final session, Helen Peetook of Wainwright said this:

"I don't think we have much time to live in this earth. Like the song says, this is not my home, I'm just passing through."

We pass hard through such beauty, and so briefly.

 

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AuthorWasilla, Alaska, by 300 | Comment3 Comments |

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Reader Comments (3)

January 22. two months of darkness. we can hardly stand it here in philly when darkness descends before 6 pm.

November 19, 2010 | Unregistered Commenterruth z deming

Helen is a wise person

November 20, 2010 | Unregistered Commentertwai12

Speak for yourself, Ruth! I live in lovely West Philly, and I absolutely love this time of year. It gets dark so early that it feels like the day is over, but then I realize it's only 5:30 and I still have plenty of time to get things done. I'm a night person, I think this would be awesome. Of all places to see someone else from Philly...cheers!

December 18, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterGinger

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