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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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Saturday
Apr092011

Lazy, Saturday feeling prevails

DateSaturday, April 9, 2011 at 12:22PM

The question is, what am I doing in the house right now? Margie and Kalib are in the backyard and I hear happy sounds coming from back there, as well as the sound of a stick occasionally bumping a turned-over canoe, and of water splashing.

Yesterday afternoon, I drove into Anchorage to pick Margie up at Jacob and Lavina's, where she had been baby-sitting all week, not to bring her home, but to take her on a date - out to a movie, to dinner - and then drop her back off until late late tonight, just before Jacob, Lavina, Kalib and Jobe catch their flight to Albuquerque.

But, things worked out differently than I had anticipated and I wound up bringing my date home with me - along with two little boys.

Having a desperate need to do so, l slept in very late today and it was good.

Now I have a very lazy Saturday feeling. Margie and Kalib are in the backyard.

I have a bunch of pictures sitting in front of me, waiting to be edited, processed, placed in this post and written about.

But I am not going to do it. Not now.

Instead, I will just post the first picture that I took after I left to pick up Margie and take her out on a date:

Pioneer Peak, looming above.

Maybe I will post some of the others later.

Maybe I won't.

We will see. For now, I am just going to go out into the backyard and see what kind of commotion Kalib and Margie are getting into.

Jobe is napping in his cradleboard. Caleb is in the house to listen, should Jobe wake up.

 

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

Me too, Bill. lazy Saturday... but hey that's a good thing! It's my favorite luxury - one day a week! Aloha to you and yours...

April 9, 2011 | Unregistered Commenterkalamahina

I wanted to say, I drove out to Wasilla for dinner a couple of weeks ago. I haven't been out there since High School. The roads were beautifully maintained, better than any Alaskan town I've been. Big Box stores, commercial chains everywhere. Small town is not the feel at all, not a criticism, just an observation.

It is a breathtaking town. But I was weary. Sorry for that, not Wasillan's fault that it is tainted by the Palins.

April 10, 2011 | Unregistered Commenteran alaskan

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