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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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Monday
Apr252011

Cats, sticks, ducks, geese, fish, Time Immemorial and oatmeal, with nuts, berries, peaches and milk

DateMonday, April 25, 2011 at 11:52AM

I've just got to move along, get this blog out of the way and get on to other things. Yesterday, after I posted the series that ended with beautiful Molly, I took a decent walk, and then a fifteen-mile bike ride.

On the walk I saw Jessie James, peering at me through the sticks.

I saw that the ice had melted off the tiny pond the kids named "Little Lake" when they were little. Geese and ducks had stopped by to visit, perhaps to make goslings and ducklings.

Melanie and Charlie invited those of us who were not in Arizona over for an Easter dinner of salmon, halibut, salad and potato salad.

Oh, my goodness... was it good!

Poor Bear Meech. He wanted it but he couldn't have it.

Then we went to the play, Time Immemorial, written, directed and acted by Allison Warden and Jack Dalton. 

Here is Allison and Jack, after the play.

I wish I had time to write more and to edit and post a few pics from the play, but I don't.

This morning, just before I woke up, I got a call from Niece Sujitha in Bangalore. She asked me what I was going to have for breakfast. Oatmeal, I told her. She wanted to see proof, just in case I changed my mind and went out to breakfast again.

So here it is: my oatmeal, with black berries, peaches, walnuts and milk.

Jim joined me, but didn't eat any.

Or maybe he just used my knee as a stepping stone, on his way to another place.

 

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AuthorWasilla, Alaska, by 300 | Comment3 Comments |
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Reader Comments (3)

i would have enjoyed the fish, but although your oatmeal looks great i don't like oatmeal LOL...glad you enjoyed it

April 25, 2011 | Unregistered Commentertwain12

Slurrppp!!! Looks YUmmmyyy..... So a day's breakfast of Oatmeal from My dear Uncle's hand is booked for my trip to Alaska, whenever I make it :)

April 26, 2011 | Unregistered CommenterSuji

hmm, maybe i'll make oatmeal for b'fast. yes, good idea. and that salmon and halibut for easter! yum.

April 29, 2011 | Unregistered CommenterRuth Deming

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