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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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Entries in rain (1)

Saturday
May012010

Desperate to live on, winter gives us a 35 degree blast of snow and rain, but spring continues to win; Kalib gives us all a bad scare

DateSaturday, May 1, 2010 at 2:47PM

Now that I have an iPhone and can listen to the radio on it, I had decided to pedal to Metro Cafe instead of drive. Plus, the weather has been so nice lately, I figured that maybe I could get my coffee and then sit at one of the little tables on the patio.

That way, I wouldn't burn up any gas and I would still get to travel and listen to the news.

But, when I stepped out my front door, I was greeted by a fierce mix of rain and snow, coming down hard. 

So I got into the car and headed to Metro.

I did not shoot a study there, because Carmen was busy with some folks and could not come to the window. Afterward, I drove onto Church Road and this is what it looked like.

Two days earlier, we had been pleasantly shocked by 65 degree temperatures. Now it was 35. In Barrow, this would be outrageously hot for this time of year, but for Wasilla it was on the cool side.

That 91.1 is for KSKA, where All Things Considered was playing.

Church and Spruce.

Down by the park, the same one that I featured Monday, I saw three girls, eager to cross the road. They had probably not expected this storm to hit so suddenly when they set out to walk.

Now they were getting wet - and cold, I suspect.

In some places, the snow began to accumulate.

In other places, it didn't. This is on Schrock, where the temperature was just the same and the precipitation as heavy, but there was no snow in it. Only rain.

Out of curiosity, I circled back to Church and found that it was still coming down as snow there.

Curious lady, Mother Nature.

As I drove, my iPhone rang. It was Lavina. Kalib had become worse. He had blisters in his mouth and could not eat or drink. He was drooling. He was feverish. He was miserable. Jacob was coming home and they were going to take him to the emergency room.

I headed straight home after that, and gave Margie the car so that she could go in and take care of Jobe. I had work to do and so stayed put

Around 8:00 PM or so, I broke from my work to tale a walk. I felt very nervous. I looked at the trees and I could see that buds had become prominent on the deciduous trees.

Very soon, we will see leaves.

Try as winter might to deny it, it has been defeated.

A jogger jogged past me.

I picked my way along the muddy trail.

When I reached home, I saw these two balls on the roof - undoubtedly the work of Kalib, assisted by his Uncle Caleb.

I went into the house and called Margie.

Although we would have to wait 24 hours for the tests that had been run on Kalib to be diagnosed, the news was good. He had taken medication that had removed the pain from his mouth. He was eating, he was drinking, his spirits were good and his energy renewed; he had come home.

Lavina also had blisters in her mouth when she got sick last week, but now she is fine.

I am certain Kalib will be too.

Lavina is now breast-feeding Jobe again.

AuthorWasilla, Alaska, by 300 | Comment7 Comments |
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