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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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« Slide Show, ten images: the Barrow Whalers football at practice | Main | I leave my family and cool and rainy weather behind and drop into sweltering, hot, Barrow where I find Dustinn Craig, teaching young people how to make movies »
Saturday
Aug072010

Aarigaa - a good place to warm up after a cold football game; Dustinn is now back in Arizona

DateSaturday, August 7, 2010 at 7:28PM

Not only was the air at the football game very cool and moist with the occasional raindrop flying through it, but the wind was stiff, strong and steady. I wasn't dressed warm enough and was thoroughly chilled pretty by the end of it.

So I went to Aarigaa Java to get a beverage that would warm me.

This isn't that picture, though. This is from yesterday, when Dustinn took me there, where we found Thelma, always ready, at 40 above or 40 below to keep her good customers from Barrow warm and awake.

And this is where I said goodbye to Dustinn - in front of Roy Ahmaogak's bungalow, where I am staying. Dustinn wanted a picture of him with the Ilisagvik College van that he used to drive his Media Camp students around.

Here it is Dustinn.

Here is Thelma again, today, handing me a warmup after the football game. I am not in a vehicle but on foot.

This is all I am going to post today. Perhaps by Sunday morning or hopefully early afternoon at the latest, I can get a post up on today's season opener for the Barrow Whalers football team.

For now, I won't say who won or lost. If you are from Barrow or any Slope village, you already know. If you don't know, I might as well keep you in suspense until I can show you a few scenes from the game.

 

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Reader Comments (1)

never know how to dress around here either....i usually carry clothing for every season in my car lol

August 8, 2010 | Unregistered Commentertwain12

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