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 Quyana Alaska (1)

Saturday
Oct242009

She dances, then speaks of the cancer her doctor said would kill her six months ago - now she has the support and prayers of the Native community

Mildred Martinez, Tsimshian from Metlakatla, (left) had been dancing strong at AFN's Quyana Alaska Friday night, but then the dancing stopped and she told the crowd about her fight with cancer. What started out as breast cancer had migrated to her spine, into which a metal rod was inserted, and then two tumors went to her brain.

In February, her doctor told her that her situation was hopeless, that it would be futile for him to treat her further and that she should just go home and prepare to die, because she would not make it past April.

Yet, here she was, six months past the deadline her doctor had given her, dancing with a group of Tlingit and Haida dancers from Juneau.

She spoke of how she had not given up just because her doctor said she was done, but had fought on and had found a physician in the Lower 48 who believed she could still make a fight of it. He began to treat her and so she is still here.

"Everyone has the right to fight for their life," she said.

Her fight is not over. Although she still lives, the cancer is still with her and she will soon travel Outside for chemo treatments.

Martinez expressed her faith in God, and stated her belief that He will help her through this.

Out in the crowd, hands lifted up in prayerful support.

Her fellow dancers gathered around her and sang, "How Great Thou Art."

When the song ended, the box drummer returned to his drum. The booming sound that he created was one of power and strength.

After she danced down from the stage and moved in traditional style toward the exit, a hand reached out to her. It would not be the only one.

She danced toward the exit.

Before stepping through the exit into the hall, she received a hug.

She joined in (back row, far right) with her fellow dancers as they waved through the TV cameras to their relatives and friends down in Southeast Alaska, and to well-wishers in every part of Alaska.

So many people who this morning did not know who she was now pray for her. In the Alaska Native community, that means a great deal.

 

As for me, I am in the same situation I was last night, but it is even later, I am more tired, my headache is worse and there is simply no way I can even look at the bulk of the day's take.

It seems a small matter. It will all hold. The pictures of all these people that I have been meeting and photographing will be there for me to run another day.