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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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Tuesday
Nov092010

I walk past a dog, a raven flies by, a jet soars overhead; I wander down "Moose Alley"

DateTuesday, November 9, 2010 at 11:57AM

I hadn't gone walking about my neighborhood for a long time - either because I had been traveling, riding my bike, or because I was so busy doing other things or maybe I was just being lazy.

Yesterday, I decided it was time to start walking again - to see what I could see - to be a street photographer in Wasilla, Alaska.

I hadn't been walking long before I spotted this dog. It was a wary dog.

It did not know that I am every dog's best friend - even if I am cat person.

This dog had nothing to fear from me.

Yet, it feared me.

I spotted a raven up ahead. It spotted me, then flew over to check me out.

"Hey!" it exclaimed as it swept by, "I recognize you from last winter."

"Yes," I agreed. "I recognize you, too. How you been? I've been meaning to ask your name?"

I never got an answer.

The raven had already flown on.

A jet passed overhead.

I wondered if there were people inside eating pretzels, consuming soft drinks and beer, looking down upon Alaska, marveling at the snow mountains.

I came to the corner of Tamar and Seldon.

I looked both ways, to see if bears might be coming.

I saw no bears.

Not grizzly, not polar, not black.

No bears of any kind

Just a truck.

I decided that it was safe to cross the road and I did.

Then I was in the marsh, which is pretty dry these days and doesn't even seem like a marsh anymore. 

I walked down "Moose Alley," peering into the bushes for moose. I did not want to find myself with a mama cow on one side of me and a calf or two on the other.

I did not see any moose all.

But, late at night, I took a walk in the dark - too dark to take a picture. Suddenly, there was a moose - a cow, about ten feet to my right. I quickly looked to my left.

I saw no calves to my left.

I couldn't be sure. It was pretty dark. The cow was placid, though, so it was okay.

This morning, during the early part of dusk, I cooked myself some oatmeal and then sat down on the couch to eat it. It was then that I looked out through the back door window and saw this moose and two others in the yard.

There wasn't much light, and I did not want my oatmeal to get cold, plus I was wearing slippers and did not want to get snow in my socks, but I picked up my camera, stepped outside and shot a few underexposed frames. They looked like nothing but black in my camera, but I was able to scrape much of the blackness away in Lightroom and Photoshop and so was left with this noisy image.

I don't care if its noisy. That was the situation. Better a noisy photo than no photo.

I then came back in and ate my oatmeal.

It was still hot.

The coffee was still hot.

My day had begun.

 

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

very nice! I love your walkabout photos!

November 9, 2010 | Unregistered Commenterjustafarmer

Re: the skittish pup - beagle ears on a whippet!

November 9, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterMichelle

great pictures , even the moose

November 10, 2010 | Unregistered Commentertwain12

please add the first photo 'to my cart' as they say on amazon. in other words, i'll buy it. when i was in alaska at age 19 i saw one of those regal mooses in some forest. i was terrified tho and thought it would trounce me to bits so i left quickly

November 10, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterRuth Deming

Lovely photo/story essay. I'm in bed with the flu and this made me smile.........

November 10, 2010 | Unregistered Commenterkathleenpalingates

I love the raven shot!

November 10, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterErik

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