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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
Oct282011

The girl who sat across the room at breakfast time

DateFriday, October 28, 2011 at 12:00PM

As usual when Margie is off spending her weekdays in town to help Lavina with the little ones, I got up thinking that I should fix myself some oatmeal, for reasons of economy, health and time, but quickly found an excuse not to. It was cold in the house, maybe about 40-45 degrees and to build a fire felt like a waste of wood, what with Margie not here to enjoy the heat.

She has the car, so I got on my bike and pedaled to Abby's Home Cooking. There were many frozen puddles along the way and I made a point to pedal right across as many of them as I could. Some broke, crunched and crackled beneath my tires and some didn't. The ones that broke did so because after the surface had frozen, the water beneath had gone away, leaving just air bubbles behind and the ice covering those bubbles was not strong enough to support the weight of me and my bike.

Then I got to Abby's and it was warm inside. I ordered ham, eggs over easy, hashbrowns and coffee.

I'm not quite sure what Danille, Abby's grandniece who will be two next week, had ordered. Maybe it was a breakfast milkshake... an eggs, bacon, potatoes and blueberry pancake shake.

I've never had one, but I understand they are quite tasty.

 

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

wow, great little story, bill! love your description of waking up in a cold house, then biking along the road cracking over the ice. you're sure not affraid of the cold! yesterday it was 50 degrees in suburban philly and i was freeeezing!

October 29, 2011 | Unregistered CommenterRuth Deming

BILL,FROSTFROG...

I feel like I am there...
Thank you ...you remind that life can be simple and beautiful....

VIVA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A civilian from broken Greece

October 29, 2011 | Unregistered Commentera civilian-mass audience

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