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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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Tuesday
Apr262011

One bike and two dogs

DateTuesday, April 26, 2011 at 10:42AM

The thing that I have noticed about my bike-riding this spring is that it has been taking me considerably longer to get back into pedaling shape than ever before. I have been going anywhere from a scant six to ten miles a day, but the day before yesterday I went 15 and then yesterday I was dragging all day.

I'm still dragging.

Of course, about half of that was against the wind - and uphill, too!

Still, I have to think it might be because I am finally hitting a point in life where I can truly feel the difference in age one year to the next. Then, too, the past winter was a draining one for me - so maybe it is the two combined: age and drain.

Yet, I think I am starting to get stronger; despite the fact that I am dragging, my endurance is on the increase.

And guess what?

When I park my bike after today's ride, I won't be biking anymore for awhile.

All the conditioning that I have been doing will go away.

I am about to go traveling again, that's why.

At this time tomorrow, I should be sitting in an airplane, flying over northwest Alaska, approaching my destination. I will be gone for anywhere from a week to 12 days and if it is 12, then I will return home just long enough to unpack my bags, wash my clothes and get on a jet going south.

But back to yesterday's bike ride:

I had barely begun when I came upon Tony, the hunter and author, and Taiga, the hunting dog, who knows how to retrieve a duck but can't write a single sentence.

I pedaled about ten miles. As I neared home, this dog suddenly appeared in front of me and like a bullet shot straight to my leg.

I know this dog. It acts tougher than it is. I am not afraid of it.

It could sure be unnerving to a biker who doesn't know it, muzzled though it be.

 

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

like you, i resumed biking, albeit on a stationery bike, which knows no winds or dogs. hadn't biked in over a month but am now up to ten minutes a day, aiming for 20. it's so boring i can only go for 20 minutes, not miles and miles like you do. you'll stay healthy as long as you bike.

April 26, 2011 | Unregistered CommenterRuth Deming

Exercise+Netflix=Happiness. I am stornger than I have been in years thanks to 90 minute streaming movies every day in my living room.
Lucky for you lot planes can still afford to fly otherwise alaskans would be trapped in one spot all the time. And then what would they do?

April 26, 2011 | Unregistered Commenterconchscooter

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