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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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Saturday
Jun262010

Here I am in Copenhagen, in a stupor

DateSaturday, June 26, 2010 at 9:35AM

I've got a few things and people met to blog about from the trip so far, but I simply can't do it. I'm in a stupor. Thursday night, or actually early Friday morning, I went to bed at 1:50 am and set the alarm for 4:50 - just in case the rare thing happened and I actually.

But it didn't. After hardly sleeping at all, I made certain to get up in time to turn the alarm off before it went off, then I took a shower, woke Margie up and drove to Anchorage and to the airport.

I had hoped to sleep between Anchorage and Minneapolis/St. Paul but I did not sleep one wink. I closed my eyes and tried pretty hard, but it just didn't work.

Same thing with Minneapolis/St. Paul to Amsterdam. For the first two hours, I forced myself to keep my eyes closed but still I could not fall asleep. Then I watched two movies and then spent the rest of the flight to Amsterday visiting the fellow next. I must put him in the blog, but I can't do it right now.

Nor could I sleep Amsterdam to Copenhagen.

Now I have been wandering downtown Copenhagen for the past six or seven hours, but I haven't enjoyed it as much as I would and in my stupor I kept doing stupid things, like step into a bike trail that I did not recognize as such where a guy plowed in my camera hand with his bike and sent my pocket camera flying and bouncing across the pavement.

It doesn't seem to have hurt it, though.

So I think I will go to bed early tonight, then get up early and catch my flight to Nuuk.

Speaking of Nuuk - there it is on this little map that I could pull up on the seat back in front of me when I was not watching movies. You can see where our plane was when I took the picture. See how close we were to Nuuk?

But we just went on, to Amsterdam, then to Copenhagen and tomorrow I must fly back to Nuuk.

So this is a lesson right here in the challenges that the people of the Iñuit Circumpolar Council have in getting together on any kind of regular basis.

Most of those coming down from Alaska are in Nuuk already and they came on a charter, but it was full so that is why I had to come this way. I didn't feel bad about it, though. I was excited to see Copenhagen.

And now I am too tired to enjoy Copenhagen.

I'm so tired, I can't write another w

AuthorWasilla, Alaska, by 300 | Comment5 Comments |

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Reader Comments (5)

*tiptoes out so as not to wake the photojournalist who has fallen asleep on his keyboard*

June 26, 2010 | Unregistered Commenterdebby

hope you got some rest

June 26, 2010 | Unregistered Commentertwain12

Wish I'd known you were passing through Amsterdam - I'd have offered you a coffee myself, though I guess it was a touch and roll visit.

You should never watch those "where is the plane on the map" things - they are there to violate the laws of spacetime and make the journey twice as long...

June 26, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterMark W

Oh Bill. Insomnia is a terrible thing. I do hope sweet dreams find you soon.

June 27, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterManxMamma

Hope you are doing well!

June 27, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterMichelle

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