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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
Sep182011

Pregnant spider walking; Lavina comes to pick up her babies as we wait for the new baby; Hannah Solomon, who lived for almost 103 years

DateSunday, September 18, 2011 at 9:53AM

On my morning walk, I came upon this pregnant spider -- VERY PREGNANT! I had the wrong lens to be photographing a spider, but, to quote once again from Donald Rumsfeld:

"As you know, you photograph a spider with the lens you have, not the lens you wish you had brought or might bring at a later time, when the spider is gone."

 

Lavina had planned to come out yesterday and then spend the night with us so that she could see her babies again, but she didn't. This was because she had been having contractions Friday - not true labor contractions, but getting ready for labor contractions. Then it intensified to the point where she told Jake that it was time for him to take her to the hospital.

So Jake got ready to go and then the pains went away.

Margie and I then made plans to drive the boys back home Saturday. Lavina called to cancel our plans. She and Jacob were going to come out and pick them up themselves.

The idea of her traveling an hour away from her hospital scared me a bit, but I guess she had been cooped up at home too long, and needed to get out.

In the meantime, Kalib took a nap.

Jobe and me on the back porch.

Kalib prunes some bushes as he waits for his mom to arrive.

She arrived in the early evening, with Jacob and Muzzy in tow. She saw Jobe first, so picked him up and just gazed at him. This bed-rest stuff has been pretty hard on Lavina, because she loves to be with her babies but over the past weeks we have had them here more than she and Jacob have had them there.

Kalib then wanted her attention and he got it.

Soon she had them both.

Soon, they were ready to go - and they were taking Margie with them, so she could help out. Margie is one hell of a grandma, I'll say that. Back when we young and making babies ourselves, I never thought of her as a grandma, but she is a grandma and quite an amazing one, I think.

Before they got into the car to drive away, Jacob and Lavina discovered they had to clean dog poop off their shoes.

I jokes! I jokes! I jokes!

They were just checking out the soles of their shoes.

I think their shoes were new, that's why.

They sure look new to me.

Sooner or later, though, they will step in dog poop.

It happens to us all. It happened to me just yesterday... in the marsh that has dried up and become a meadow.

Gross!

Then they were all in the car, ready to go.

And there they go, Jake and Margie waving at me. You can't see Margie's face because she has turned it to her grandchildren, telling them to wave goodbye to grandpa, but I couldn't see them, so I don't know if they waved or not.

Kalib probably did. I doubt that Jobe did.

He wouldn't have been being stuck up or ornery, he's just not quite into waving yet... but he's getting there.

As I left, I climbed onto my bike and pedalled off on short ride, about ten miles round trip. As I pedalled down Seldon, this airplane flew overhead.

You can hardly see the plane at this size. It would show up bigger in slide show view. A few seconds later, I took a shot that I like better, because I dropped the camera down just a bit and you can see headlights coming down the road with the plane above.

But the plane is too small in that frame to even bother posting here.

I mention this less for the readers' benefit than my own.

One day, I intend to include these words in the title of a book I have so far only dabbled at but hope to publish before I die:

I still look up

And I think the one with the car headlights in it might be good enough to include in that book.

So I write this to myself so that when I come back to this page and see this plane, I will know that there is another image that I must go take another look at.

 

Remembering: Hannah Solomon, 10/10/08 - 9/16/11

Hannah Solomon, Matriarch of the Gwich'in Nation, who passed away in Fairbanks late Friday afternoon - three weeks before her 103rd birthday. July, 2006.

Hannah Solomon dancing at her 100th birthday party.


 

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AuthorWasilla, Alaska, by 300 | Comment4 Comments |
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Reader Comments (4)

I'm so glad to see you and your family-the picture of Lavinia looking at her little boy was priceless!!!

September 18, 2011 | Unregistered CommenterAnn S.

sad to hear about Hannah Solomon.. she seemed like quite a woman..

September 18, 2011 | Unregistered CommenterRocksee

Wait a minute! Kalib has turned into a GIANT of a boy! He's not a toddler any more!!!!

Eagerly awaiting the new arrival...

September 18, 2011 | Unregistered CommenterOmegaMom

What a great Mom and Grandma those little ones have! (they have a pretty darn swell grandfather too!!) Love the pic of Lavina with her boys...can't wait for the new addition.

September 20, 2011 | Unregistered CommenterChrissyinPA

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