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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
Jul102010

Wasilla on a 78 degree scorcher: I go biking with Shadow Me, Tony and Taiga prepare for the hunt; relief from the heat at Wasilla Malibu

DateSaturday, July 10, 2010 at 10:28AM

Yesterday, I had speculated that I would not post at all today, as people go out to play on summer Saturday's, my readership goes way down, I'm still jet-lagged from and getting over the sickness that struck me down in wonderful Greenland and maybe I should just relax and play today myself.

In fact, I decided that was exactly what I would do - not blog today.

But then it seemed silly to just leave things sitting where they were, when we had all baked at 78 degrees in Wasilla and I could easily put up a very quick and easy post to tell you so.

So here is Shadow Me, biking at 78 degrees in Wasilla. Shadow Me never sweats, but I do - and I did.

Usually when I bike, I try to take all my pictures as I pedal past the subject. But when I saw Tony and his new pup, I had to stop. Tony is a hunter and he was training the pup how to be a hunting dog. The pup is named Taiga, because that is where they are going to go hunting - on the taiga.

Tony is a good neighbor, by the way. A very good neighbor. And he is an author - like me, but his subject matter is different. Related, but different.

His dogs are always good dogs.

I have never known Tony to have a bad dog.

I liked Barney the best.

Barney grew old and died, as dogs do with alarming frequency.

As we all do, unless we die young.

I miss Barney.

As I pedaled down Church Road toward the Little Susistna River, I saw a man working in his yard, where pretty flowers bloomed.

Such is summer life in the Great, White, Eternally-Frozen North.

Here we are, passing by Wasilla Lake's Wasilla Malibu Beach, Margie driving, me in the passenger seat, kids cooling off in the water.

Yesterday, Lisa read the part in my blog where I speculated that perhaps today I might want to play myself. She called. She should be here soon. Then we will go out into the country and play.

 

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AuthorWasilla, Alaska, by 300 | Comment2 Comments |
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Reader Comments (2)

don't you hate people who say, "I told you so?"

i never said it but i knew you'd blog today. nothing like being home in your own backyard and typing on your trusty ole computer, doing one of your fave things...bloggin!

July 10, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterRuth Z Deming

enjoy the games

July 10, 2010 | Unregistered Commentertwain12

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