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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 Vanessa (1)

Saturday
Jul182009

At 11, he fought off a polar bear and saved a man from drowning beneath the ice

DateSaturday, July 18, 2009 at 10:55PM

While taking a short walk late at night through a nice, pleasant, rain in Point Hope, where the weather had suddenly turned warm, I happened upon these three: Eva Nashookpuk, Shaun Stone and Aaron Milligrock.

Off the top of my head, I have no stories about Eva and Shaun, but I do about Aaron, who I first met at Kivgiq in Barrow last February, where he danced with style and power.

One night, I shared a dinner table with he and his mom and a few others from Point Hope and learned about some heroics he pulled off at 11 years of age (he is 12 now).

One happened when he was headed back out to whaling camp on the spring ice and came upon a hole where a 21-year old whaler had gone through into the frigid water. He could not get out, and the cold water was quickly taking him down.

Small and slight though he was, 11 year old Aaron jumped off his snowmachine, put himself prone upon the ice, reached out, took hold of the man's arms and found the strength to drag this man who was much bigger than him out of the water.

That same spring, a polar bear came nosing into his tent and he jabbed it in the nose with a fork. It must have been a big cooking fork, because when he demonstrated how he had done it, he moved his arms in a thrusting motion from over his shoulder, forward, almost like he was throwing a harpoon.

Thank goodness... the polar bear backed away, whining as it went.

On the same walk, I also happened upon Vanessa Driggs walking with three of her children. A fourth, an infant, is on her back under her jacket. She hurt her ankle jumping off of a four-wheeler. It is not a bad injury.

Someday, I must photograph her with her twin brother. When I do, then you will understand why I must.

 

 

AuthorWasilla, Alaska, by 300 | Comment3 Comments |
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