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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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Monday
Mar292010

In need of a cup of Fog Island coffee

DateMonday, March 29, 2010 at 5:51AM

A curious thing happened to me last night. I sat down on the couch in the little study adjacent to my room in the mansion at 99 Main, where I have yet to turn on the TV and probably won't, opened up my laptop, downloaded my photos from the day and then started to make a quick pass through them to get a feel for what I got. 

Then I planned to do a quick edit, pick out a number of images and make a post.

When I was a little more than half-way through the take, I blinked. To my surprise, the final image of the day was now on the screen.

I realized that I had not blinked at all, but had briefly fallen asleep with my finger resting upon the forward arrow key.

So I backed up to where I had been when I had dozed off, then returned my finger to the advance arrow key and started clicking my way through again. Then I blinked again and, yes, the same thing happened.

The problem is, I think, that not only did I leave home after a night of almost no sleep, but since I arrived, I have been going to bed on Alaska time and waking up on East Coast time.

I decided my body was trying to tell me something, so I called Margie and then went to bed. It was just a bit after 11:30 East Coast time. Of course, it still took me some time to go to sleep and then I woke up wide awake at 2:30 AM.

I knew I needed more sleep than that, so I forced my eyes closed and kept them that way until I dozed off again. I woke up periodically throughout the night until 7:30 AM, when I awoke from a dream that I was on the ice off Wainwright with Jason Ahmaogak and Iceberg 14.

I got up and went to Fog Island for breakfast, where Sashana poured me a cup of coffee.

So I am way behind on my pictures and in just minutes, Tony is going to pick me up and give me a tour of the island and show me the Yankee whaler scrimshaw.

A big rain is forecast. Maybe tonight, I can somewhat catch up on my blog.

This is Kim of Vermont, a graduate student in education who works at the museum and lives elsewhere in this mansion at 99 Main where I am staying. Please don't picture a huge, gigantic mansion such as one you might find in an Alfred Hitchcock movie. As mansions go, it is modest, but is a mansion none the less.

Kim's parents lived in Fairbanks and Delta Junction for brief time during the pipeline construction days and liked it well enough to consider settling, but Vermont was too much in their blood, so they returned and that is where they raised Kim.

Kim joined me for the first part of my Fog Island breakfast, but I must leave this computer now and go touring with Tony, so that's it for now.

AuthorWasilla, Alaska, by 300 | Comment1 Comment |
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Reader Comments (1)

OH MY...good thing you got some rest .

March 29, 2010 | Unregistered Commentertwain12

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