Top
A blog by Bill Hess

Running Dog Publications

P.O. Box 872383 Wasilla, Alaska 99687

 

All photos and text © Bill Hess, unless otherwise noted 
All support is appreciated
Bill Hess's other sites
Search
Navigation
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.

Blog archive
Blog arhive - page view

Entries in New York Times (2)

Monday
Oct172011

The eye of the New York Times focuses on Barrow; winter draws nigh to Wasilla

DateMonday, October 17, 2011 at 9:39PM

This is New York Times reporter William Yardley, as his byline reads in the paper, although he introduced himself to me as Bill Yardley. As I am Bill, too, and we were in Barrow, that would make him my "atik," which, in a way, kind of makes us like relatives of sorts.

I first met him, along with New York Times photographer Jim Wilson and videographer Erik Olsen, in the North Slope Borough office building, where they had just interviewed Mayor Edward Itta. 

Then, the next day, I saw them at the Barrow Whalers' football playoff game when our boys defeated Monroe Catholic and again immediately afterward at the site where the Aiken whale had been landed and butchered.

I took this picture in the rearview mirror as Yardley drove the car they had rented from the landing site back to Barrow, about five miles. We happened to leave at the same time and they were kind enough to give me a ride.

Judging from what they told me, they must have more coverage coming, in addition to what appeared today in two parts online.

The two parts can be found here:

http://tinyurl.com/3z6rurw

http://nyti.ms/nP8QSC

Yardley has also spent a lot of time in Wasilla, covering... well, you know who... the same person who pulled media from all over the world to Wasilla... while I, a media person who lives right here... just turned around and walked away from it all, just about. Yardley covered her for the New York Times.

I took a walk today. As you can see, winter has not quite reached Wasilla, the way it has reached Barrow and the Arctic Slope, but it is getting close.

This dog came running, barking, growling, snarling, charging in from behind, pretending that it was going to rip me to pieces. When I turned and pointed my camera at it, it stopped cold. It let its tail fall down.

Most "mean" dogs are like this - but in Barrow, I met a genuinely mean dog.

It was scary. Given the level of its gnashing teeth teeth to my body, I was thinking it was good that I had already fathered all the children I ever need to, but, at the same time, the idea of losing the capability to a mean dog did exactly please me.

Later in the afternoon, during my usual 4:00 PM coffee break, I drove down Shrock Road and discovered that it had snowed there - just a couple of miles from our house. It was late in the afternoon and it had been sunny all day, so the snow must have completely covered the ground in the morning.

Winter is drawing nigh to Wasilla - I hope. The leaves are long gone now. Once the leaves go, I am ready for the snow.

Plus, I got used to it in Barrow and Atqasuk.

 

View images as slides


AuthorWasilla, Alaska, by 300 | Comment2 Comments |
in , , , , , , , ,
Friday
Jun102011

Featured in Lens - The New York Times photography, video and visual journalism blog

DateFriday, June 10, 2011 at 12:23PM

I will be lazy today and just reference you here:

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/10/a-warm-feeling-for-the-arctic

There are a few little mistakes - I was born in Utah but raised in Oregon, Montana and California, and I would like my late father to receive the credit for being the one who first recited Robert Service to me and so created a vivid image of Alaska and the far north in my head. 

Not mentioned was the fact that my recent work on the Arctic Slope and in behalf of the North Slope Borough has been motivated, inspired and pushed by the grass roots Iñupiat-driven Healthy Communities Movement to counter the effects of alcohol and drug abuse and a few of the pictures do come from that coverage and were done in that context.

That noted, Lens is one of the best things out there in online photojournalism and photography and I feel greatly honored and thankful to be featured within.

 

AuthorWasilla, Alaska, by 300 | Comment22 Comments |
in ,