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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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Sunday
Nov132011

Two November 13 birthdays, part 2: Greetings, Larry Aqlunaq Ahmaogak!

DateSunday, November 13, 2011 at 10:11PM

Please allow me to introduce Larry Charles Aqlunaq Ahmaogak of Wainwright. I almost didn't make it over to see him on this, his birthday of origin, because I had first gone to the party which you will see on November 13 birthday #1. Thanks to these shingles, I got to feeling so weak, rotten, and drained over there that when the party ended, all I wanted to do was go home.

But a friend is a friend and family is family and this includes the family that adopts when you are in your 40's. So I decided to drop by, say "hi" to Jason and Iqaluk, give them my best wishes for the upcoming birth of their baby and then go home.

I called Jason, to see where I might find them. "We are here at ANMC with our son Larry," Jason answered in a tired but proud voice, "born this morning at 7:59 AM; seven pounds, 14.4 oz.; 20 inches."

So off I went to the Alaska Native Medical Center.

Jason Ahmaogak is the kind of guy who can go out on the flat tundra in whiteout conditions in the darkness of winter at 50 below, be just fine and never get lost. He can venture into the maze of broken, pressure ridge riddled ice and know where he is at all times. Even without GPS, he can boat out into the Chukchi in the fog and come home okay.

But Jason got lost in the hospital. He left Iqaluk and Larry - whether Larry was born yet or not I am not sure - to run an errand and then he could not find his way back. He wandered down this hall and that hall and all the halls just looked like halls.

Finally though, he made it back. That is good, because he has to teach this boy how to survive in the Arctic.

Larry Aqlunaq - this name comes to him from his grandfather, Jason's dad, who passed away very recently. This means a great deal in the Iñupiat way of life.

Notice the symbol on Jason's sweatshirt. I have a sweatshirt just like this. That symbol stands for Iceberg 14, the whaling crew that Jason's aapa, his grandfather, Benjamin Ahamaogak Sr, started up many decades ago. When Ben was still alive, I followed him and his crew to do a little photo essay and that was when they adopted me.

So today, I gave myself a new assignment: to follow Larry Aqlunaq off and on from now through the first whale hunt in which he takes on a role of high responsibility in the boat.

I recognize that I have given myself a huge challenge and to be quite honest, I realize that the odds are high that I will not be able to complete it. I will be a genuinely old man when that event happens. I might well be dead. I might be incapacitated.

But I just might make to that point, in decent health.

So that is my goal: to make it that point in decent health and follow Larry Aqlunaq into the boat, onto the sea, and to the bowhead whale that will come his way.

Because he is family - that's why.

Iqaluk is a fine Eskimo dancer in the Iñupiaq style. Larry Aqlunaq's older sisters are fine dancers. Small though they still be, they bring down the house whenever they perform. I suspect Larry will also be a fine dancer. I must photograph him dancing as well.

Larry Charles Aqlunaq Ahmaogak.

 

Note: I decided to run November 13 birthday part 2 before Part 1, because my son Rex is very familiar to the people who know him and to regular readers, too.

Not very many people have seen Larry yet, so I am going to post this first. I may post Rex's birthday tonight or I may wait until tomorrow. To be quite honest, I don't feel up to it right now - but I might in a little while.


Two November 13 birthdays, part 1. 

 

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

Welcome Larry Aqlunaq

November 14, 2011 | Unregistered Commentertwain12

Welcome Larry Charles Aqlunaq Ahmaogak ! Welcome!
Congratulations Iqaluk and Jason!
Congratulations Uncle Bill!

November 14, 2011 | Unregistered CommenterAlaska Pi

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