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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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Wednesday
Mar312010

Nantucket whaling: preview of what will be a small glimpse

DateWednesday, March 31, 2010 at 5:01AM

Yesterday I said that today I would post a small account of what I had seen and learned about the Yankee commercial whaling enterprise that began here out of Nantucket, Massachusetts, but when I sat down to do it, I discovered that I was so sleepy I couldn't. So, in a state of stupor, I just flopped down and watched a little TV - a strange mix of MSNBC and Fox News - Keith Olberman, Bill O'Rielly, Rachel Maddow, Sean Hannity.

I decided I had better post at least one picture and settled on this one that I had taken during a short walk on the beach on what had prooved to be a rainy, blustery day. I will still make the big Nantucket whaling post that I had planned. Maybe tomorrow, maybe later.

Then I thought of this picture, that I took inside the home of Bob and Nina Hellman. It depicts the sailing ships that set out into that sea to hunt the whale with the sculpted women that adorned their bow. I figured it wouldn't take that long for me to add it in.

And then I thought I might as well add in just one more. This is a tiny part of the amazing collection of whaling weapons and tools that is part of the amazing collection of whaling weapons, tools, and other artifacts gathered by Bob Hellman over the past half-century. The sperm whale eating the squid is in proportion to a 46 foot whale once found with a 30 foot squid in its digestive tract. 

Sperm whales can be 80 feet long, so it was of modest size.

Readers will see more of Bob and his collection, along with others, when finally I am able to find the time and energy to cobble this together.

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

Now I want to see Nantucket. The world is so full of interesting places, people, critters, things. Sad that we'll never get to see them all. BTW, I have a young woman from Alaska in my class...she is missing out on long Alaska sunny days and I'm betting she wishes she were there. Instead of here.

March 31, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterWhiteStone

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