Top
A blog by Bill Hess

Running Dog Publications

P.O. Box 872383 Wasilla, Alaska 99687

 

All photos and text © Bill Hess, unless otherwise noted 
All support is appreciated
Bill Hess's other sites
Search
Navigation
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.

Blog archive
Blog arhive - page view
« The delay was long, but finally I flew to Anchorage and drove home to Wasilla, where a fish had jumped out of a tank | Main | I am experiencing technical problems here in AKP »
Wednesday
Jun022010

Back online at Fairbanks International Airport, enroute AKP - to ANC

DateWednesday, June 2, 2010 at 1:45PM

This is Anaktuvuk Pass, this morning about 8:00 AM. I will make a couple of good reports from Anaktuvuk -maybe three or four, perhaps even more, but this post is not one of them. This post has but one purpose - to let you know that I am back online and to get something up at a reasonable hour of this day.

I am online because I am at Gate 1 at the Alaska Airlines Terminal of the Fairbanks International Airport, where my plane is scheduled to board, shortly. The airport has free wireless - as, indeed, all good, full-service, airports should.

This is Nasuġraq Rainey, formerly Higbee, but as of yesterday afternoon, Nasuġraq Rainey Hopson, her cat, Harley and her sister, Angela. Eventually, I will prepare a good report on the wedding of Rainey and B-III, and I will also give Harley a post all of her own, because she certainly deserves, but I will not do so now.

Right now, I just have to get something up, so I can catch my plane.

And here is Payuk, with one of Rainey's puppies. The puppy's dad just might be a wolf, who Rainey spotted one day eyeing a penned dog in heat. Maybe the wolf figured out how to get to the dog.

And here I am, in the plane, wishing that it was my plane, as the pilot prepares to lift off the runway.

And here we all are, the pilot, me, Byron and Alvira, airborne, leaving AKP, headed to Fairbanks.

And here we are, flying through the Brooks Range.

There are wildfires burning and so the air is filled with smoke. Two days ago, enroute from FAI to AKP, the smoke was so thick that we could not even see the Yukon River when we flew over it.

Today, although hazy, we could at least see the Yukon.

And here we are, landing in Fairbanks.

This is all I am going to post for now. My plane is scheduled to begin boarding in 11 minutes. I want to get a treat before it boards.

Update, 2:45 PM:

Well, my flight has been delayed. By an hour-and-a-half.

Damnit.

Guess I will sit here and web surf.

 

AuthorWasilla, Alaska, by 300 | Comment5 Comments |
in , , , , ,

PrintView Printer Friendly Version

EmailEmail Article to Friend

Reader Comments (5)

Hi Bill! Thanks for checking in with us.

June 2, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterMichelle

can't wait for the full report

June 2, 2010 | Unregistered Commentertwain12

Well, in an hour and a half you could have gotten more treats....

June 3, 2010 | Unregistered Commenterdebby

I wish I would have known you were there! I would have stopped off to meet you and bring you some good hardy fairbanks grub.. !

I am glad you made it safely up to the Pass.. It has not been good flying weather here for the past two weeks! Smookkkky!

June 3, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterRocksee

Michelle - Whenever I can get online - always.

Twain - It's still coming. Promis.

Debby - I thought about that, Debby, but whereas you are losing weight, I am gaining. In Arizona, I ate and ate and ate and Anaktuvuk was a feast from the moment I arrived until I left.

Rocksee - I would have eaten it, too!

June 6, 2010 | Registered CommenterWasilla, Alaska, by 300

PostPost a New Comment

Enter your information below to add a new comment.
Author Email (optional):
Author URL (optional):
Post:
 
Some HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
Alert
Comment Moderation Enabled
Your comment will not appear until it has been cleared by a website editor.

Notify me of follow-up comments via email.