A blog by Bill Hess

Running Dog Publications

P.O. Box 872383 Wasilla, Alaska 99687

 

All photos and text © Bill Hess, unless otherwise noted 
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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 from August 1, 2009 - August 31, 2009

Sunday
Aug022009

Sarah Palin experiment - a berrylicious walk with Kalib and his dad

The experiment:

Typically, the number of visitors to this site drops off come Saturday and Sunday, but this weekend something curious happened: for no reason that I could think of, the number of visitors actually rose. It did not reach the stupendous levels (for me) that it did for two days running when I posted the Barrow baby contest, but, none-the-less, it showed a healthy increase over what it had been and certainly over the typical weekend.

I was curious as to why, and so did some back-tracking and discovered that some blogs that link to me (most notably the Immoral Minority) had stories that Sarah Palin and husband Todd are about to divorce (denied by Palin's spokeswoman). 

And then, last night, the word "Palin" was in my headline.

I figured that these two factors led to the increase.

So, other than what I have stated above, this blog post has nothing to do with Sarah Palin. It is merely an experiment to see what kind of numbers I will get by including her name in the post headline. This is a one-time experiment. I will not do it again. Nor is Sarah Palin about to become a regular topic of this blog, even though it is obvious to me that my really-pretty-small audience could be significantly larger if I were to run a few Sarah Palin stories every week, perhaps every day.

If she stays in Wasilla, or even Alaska, it is almost inevitable that our paths will cross somewhere and then I will probably get a picture and post it with a few words, but, otherwise, this blog has other concerns and I will leave her to the other bloggers.

The walk.

It began in our front yard, where Kalib observed as his parents engaged in a lovey-dovey wrestling match. Shortly thereafter, Kalib found a mushroom.

He did not try to eat it and if he would have, I would not have let him.

Lavina stayed home, just in case Margie would need some help. Jacob took off walking. Fearing that he was about to be left behind, Kalib came running after. I followed with my camera.

Eventually, Kalib wound up on his father's shoulders.

By and by, he was transferred to Muzzy's back. It was sweet.

Muzzy galloped up the embankment, bucking Kalib from his back. Tenaciously, Kalib kept hold of the reins.

There were berries to eat - raspberries, blueberries and currants. There were cranberries, too, but they were not yet ready to be picked.

By the time we reached a hill that we had to descend, Kalib was walking again. Two trails went down that hill - one off at an angle with a more gentle slope, the other straight down, at a steep slope. Jacob tried to lead Kalib down the gentle slope, but he refused to go that way. He insisted upon going down the steep slope, so Jacob got in front of him and gave him his hands.

Fireweed grew in abundance at the bottom, so Jacob and Kalib plunged in. There were many honey bees flying about in those flowers, plus bumble bees and yellow jackets. When a yellow jacket alit on a blossom right in front of Kalib, Jacob warned him to leave it alone.

But, as you can see, Kalib reached out with both hands. Fortunately, he did not get stung.

And then we found more berries.

Now we are on the last stretch, coming through the marsh towards home.

Even though we are now within three hundred yards of the house, it will take Kalib and Jacob more than an hour to reach it. I grew worried about Margie and so, right after I took the following picture, hurried back to our bedroom, leaving the father and son to enjoy the delights of so beautiful a day alone together.

Jacob and Kalib, picking berries. "It was a berrylicious walk," Jacob said.

 

Saturday
Aug012009

Margie chuckles when Melanie and Lisa show her Palin on Comedy Central

Melanie and Lisa came out today, did some grocery shopping and then cooked dinner for their mom (I ate it, too!). Afterwards, because there is no TV in this room and in the summer time I just don't watch TV or even think about it, they decided it was up to them to catch Margie up on some of the news that has happened since she fell.

So they borrowed my laptop, pulled up The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and the Colbert Report. They all watched the coverage on the speech our fellow Wasillan and former governor made last Sunday, when she quit and turned the governorship over to Sean Parnell.

Margie actually chuckled. It was the closest thing to a laugh that I have heard come from her since she injured herself. It was good to hear. Thank you, ex-Governor Palin, for bringing a little humor to my wife at this trying moment in her life.

Oh yes - and they also brought her a real sunflower, which went into a vase alongside a bouquet of artificial ones.

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