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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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Friday
Aug132010

Lillyanna with Sharene's mummified cermaic cat; half mast for Senator Stevens

DateFriday, August 13, 2010 at 4:54PM

Note: Due to satellite troubles, the internet here in Barrow has been going in and out and seems to have been off much more than it has been on. This is my first chance to post, but the net is expected to vanish again at any minute. I have placed my photos, but, if you should come upon this and find that one or all of the pieces of the narrative is missing, it is because the net went out again. I will try to make a save right now and if it succeeds, I will continue until I am done or the net vanishes again:

This is Lillyanna with a ceramic cat that belongs to her Aunt Sharene, who used to have a real, live, cat that I photographed a few times - it even appeared in my book, Gift of the Whale.

Sharene has another niece, older than this one, who was curious about the ceramic cat.

Sharene told her that it was her real cat and that she had had it mummified.

"I just couldn't bear to give her up," Sharene explained.

The niece believed this for a couple of years and then one day Sharene told her she had just been joking.

The niece did not want to believe this, but the ceramic cat had an accident and one ear broke off. Then the niece saw that it was ceramic. She believed.

As I walked around the lagoon in a stiff wind, I saw these kids playing.

Scrimshaw artist Gilford Mongoyak Jr., the son of an elder who had been very good to me and who died a number of years ago gave me this sample of his work the other day. He had invited me to stop by the Iñupiat Heritage Center, where many artists come both to create and sell their work and so I did.

I did not expect him to give me anything, but he did. I have been photographing several artists, as I plan to include a section on artists in my next Uiñiq magazine. It is tough, because there are far, far, far more artists up here than I can even begin to include.

I wish I could include them all.

This is the first flag that I saw flying half-mast for Senator Stevens. Everywhere I go in Barrow, people are talking about his sudden, tragic and unexpected death. I have not heard one negative comment. What I keep hearing, over and over, is how much Senator Stevens  was instrumental in bringing into Rural Alaska.

That would include modern health facilities, such as the old hospital here in Barrow and the new one, still under construction, as well as this housing complex for doctors and other health care workers.

 

Hey! It looks like I made it all the way to the end.

I've done a lot more photography over the past few days than this blog even hints at, but this is all I have time for right now and I am saving much of it for other uses.

 

View images as slide show

 

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

Lillyanna is precious and i love the art

August 14, 2010 | Unregistered Commentertwain12

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