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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
Dec072010

Once again, I leave home to return home: three shots through a jet window

DateTuesday, December 7, 2010 at 11:26AM

Thanks to the fact that we would have to stop in both Fairbanks and Prudhoe Bay, the morning flight from Anchorage to Barrow takes nearly four-a-half hours. It leaves Anchorage at 6:00 AM and lands in Barrow at 10:21. Here we are, approaching Faribanks, where the temperature is 22 below zero. Not at all bad for this time of year.

Now we are flying west from Prudhoe to Barrow. The time is about 10: AM. From an altitude of 30,000 feet or so, it almost looks like the sun will rise today, but it will not.

And here we are, on final for Will Rogers-Wiley Post Memorial Airport Barrow at mid-morning. Five-and-a-half hours earlier, I drove away from my house in Wasilla. Now, here I am landing in my home on the Arctic Slope on a 20-20 morning - temperature, 20 below, wind speed 20 mph. 

There are so many places that feel like home to me that life can get pretty confusing sometimes. No matter where I am, I am missing another place. No matter who I am with, I am missing someone else. Yet, I am always glad to be in the place where I am at and to share the company of the people who I am with.

Much has happened since I have landed and I have taken quite a few pictures. I have no time to edit, write, or blog any further today, however, so this must do it for now.

 

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AuthorWasilla, Alaska, by 300 | Comment1 Comment |

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Reader Comments (1)

I am so thankful that my day was spent in sunlight...even though it was cold, the light feels "light". Next June I will envy you your long sunny days, but not now.

December 7, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterWhiteStone

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