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 Valley Performing Arts Center (1)

Tuesday
Feb232010

The blond girl who checked me out, then engaged me in a discussion about politics and religion; the humiliation of bare grass in February; Royce

DateTuesday, February 23, 2010 at 4:00AM

Margie drove into town to see Jobe and Kalib, but I could not go because I had too much work to do. So I had her drop me off at Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant, which would leave me with a four-mile walk home, but that's good. I needed to walk four miles. Five would have been okay. In fact, I probably did walk five, because I did not take the most direct route.

As I ate my ham and eggs, a little girl from three tables up and across the aisle saw that the table in front of me was empty, so she came over to check me out.

Her name was Nona.

We discussed the fine points of politics and religion. We did not agree on everything, but it was a civil and friendly discussion, with each party showing complete respect for the other's point of view. It was a discussion that Senators and Preachers could learn from.

This is Nona's sister, whose name I did not get. She wanted to see Nona's picture. I showed it to her. She was very pleased.

Across the aisle, one table down. After I finished my breakfast I sat and sipped my coffee for about ten extra minutes, hoping that they would finish their breakfast so I could introduce myself, show them the picture and get their names, but they weren't even close to being done and I had things to do, so I left.

It is not supposed to look like this around here in mid-February. I don't like it at all. In fact, it is humiliating, but there is nothing that I can do about it.

This is Willie. I did not catch the names of his people, but they look really familiar to me.

That was yesterday. This is today, when a raven flew over my head.

I know some of you are very concerned with Royce. A couple of days ago, he vomitted clear stuff repeatedly, but has been fine ever since. At least as fine as a cat in decline can be expected to be.

By the way, I uploaded every single picture in this post and wrote every word with my good black-cat buddy Jim sprawled out across my chest, his rear legs resting upon my left forearm and his front on my right.

You might think that it would be very hard to manipulate a computer under such circumstance, but I have much practice behind me.

Now I hate to shut down and make Jim move, but I've got to go to bed.

AuthorWasilla, Alaska, by 300 | Comment11 Comments |
in , , , , , , ,