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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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Thursday
Oct272011

Two boys, Navajo tacos almost, a future unforetold 

DateThursday, October 27, 2011 at 12:43PM

Gideon and Vincent Mahoney, who I met at Abby's Home Cooking last night. I went because I learned that her special was going to be Navajo tacos. Now, several times in Alaska, including at the state fair and even at powwows, I have seen people advertising Navajo tacos and everytime that I have taken a chance and tried it, I have been disappointed, because I get to eat the real thing on a regular basis, except that sometimes, if Margie makes them, they are Apache Tacos.

When Lavina makes them, they are Navajo tacos. Sometimes, they make them together and then they are Navapache tacos, or perhaps Apachavajo tacos.

Either way, they are pretty much the same thing and they are superb.

But I have never bought a single food item in Alaska labeled as "Navajo Tacos" that has even approached the real thing. It is always a disappointment.

I love Abby's cooking and decided to give hers a chance.

What she served was very good... excellent even- shredded beef and black beans with cheese, tomatoes, onions and salsa on frybread that is a little heavier than Navajo-Apache frybread... but it was different than Navajo tacos.

Margie is not here right now. As is so often the case these days, she is in town helping Lavina with baby Lynxton and the boys, but I talked to her on the phone last night and she agreed... we are going to either invite Abby to dinner over here or go over there and then Margie or Lavina or Margie and Lavina will fix the real thing and show her just how to do it.

Abby is in favor of the idea.

As for these boys, Abby's nephews, Vincent told me that he had been somewhere, I forget just where, Big Lake, I think, with hamburgers being served, if I remember right, and a newspaper photographer had taken his picture. He quoted what the paper had written to go with the picture, word for word, it sounded like.

Pretty smart kid.

Vincent also talked about how fun it is to play with fortune tellers, one of which said he would be going to Disneyworld soon, and sure enough, six months later he went to Disneyworld.

I was not quite certain what he meant by "fortune tellers," so he got a sheet of paper and folded it up into an intricate design with many four-sided faces and, when manipulated, one never knows which face it will open up on. Whatever is written on the face that opens, that is the foretold fortune.

He demonstated, opening and closing the thing so that it looked like little jaws biting into the air.

Then he stopped, handed it to me, and said I could keep it.

Nothing was written anywhere. The face meant to tell my fortune was blank - all the faces were blank. It looked like I had no future at all.

But that was last night, when today was the future.

Here it is today, the future, and I am still here. 

 

I am still in one picture a day mode. I tried to keep this at one, too, but after I finished I realized I really had to show the fortune teller. Truly, I don't have time to post two pictures... or to write more than one paragraph - two at the most.

I feel like I am destroying myself, posting two pictures, writing all these extra paragraphs, even as hell bears down upon me - but, I bet I will survive, just the same.

 

AuthorWasilla, Alaska, by 300 | Comment4 Comments |
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Reader Comments (4)

Oh my word, that sounds delicious! I'd buy it and eat it once a week!

October 27, 2011 | Unregistered CommenterMostly Alaskan

"I bet I will survive, just the same."

I'm counting on it! :-)

October 27, 2011 | Unregistered CommenterKatzKids

The most wonderful things come from our hardest times. Really. Just ask Margie and Lavinia. They will tell you that it is so. You will look around you, and you will see that they are right.

October 28, 2011 | Unregistered Commenterdebby

that diner picture really got me! something about diners as filmmaker david lynch knows.

October 29, 2011 | Unregistered CommenterRuth Deming

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