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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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Sunday
Apr252010

I bike into Wasilla spring: preface

DateSunday, April 25, 2010 at 11:32AM

It is late Sunday morning and I find myself feeling extremely lazy and lethargic. I do not want to do anything. Melanie has bought Margie and I some tickets to an appearance by Ira Glass of This American Life, scheduled for 4:00 PM, so in just a few hours we will leave to join her there. At some point after that, I will drop Margie back off at Jacob and Lavina's house, where she will again stay for the next four days to care for Jobe, so his mom can go back to work - this time for real, I hope. No more e-coli!

Between now and when we leave for Anchorage, I want to do nothing but be lazy.

As much as I love this blog, I do not want to work in it right now. 

Yet, yesterday was a fantastically beautiful and warm day. At mid-afternoon, the temperature was 48 degrees, the sky was deep, clean, blue, the sun shone brightly and so I climbed onto my bike and took a good ride, one that took me past young children and old men, wary-looking police and through a park where basketballs soared toward hoops and kids on skateboards took to the air and I crashed my bike and could have ruined my shoulder all over again, but I came out just fine.

I also pedaled through the graveyard, where I could not help but feel sad to see memorials to children who do not toss basketballs, ride skateboards, bikes, or play at all.

So I had planned to put up a spread from that bike ride right now and I have already lined up 21 pictures from it.

But, on this Sunday morning, I haven't the energy or the will.

So I will make today's post a preface to that story and will plan to post it tomorrow.

Unless this blog gets too distracted by today's events.

AuthorWasilla, Alaska, by 300 | Comment3 Comments |
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Reader Comments (3)

I love "This American Life" I bet you are enjoying the show!!! Report on it please!

April 25, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterMichelle

Below is the link to another blog I follow and it has a "Donate" button prominently at the top of the blog. Great way to let your blog help pay for itself!

http://www.ranchospenardo.blogspot.com/

April 25, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterSherry

crashing your bike didn't sound good, glad you didn't hurt yourself. Looking forward to today's blog about your adventures while biking :)

April 26, 2010 | Unregistered Commentertwain12

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