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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.

Blog archive
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Entries from January 1, 2011 - January 31, 2011

Saturday
Jan012011

2010: How it ended; 2011: How we have spent the year so far

DateSaturday, January 1, 2011 at 1:43PM

To close out 2010, Margie and I drove to the new Tikahtnu theatres on the near edge of Anchorage to see a late afternoon matinee showing of "True Grit."

Here we are, approaching the theatre.

Right after we had we taken our seats in the theatre, before I had silenced my iPhone, a message came in. It was from Lavina. She and her boys were roaming about elsewhere in Anchorage and Kalib had found himself holding a snake, surrounded by dinosaurs.

It was a damn frightening scene to see.

As for True Grit, we enjoyed it. It had some moments in it that were extremely emotional for me, due more to the connections they caused my mind to make, rather than to what was happening onscreen itself.

It is at such moments that one appreciates the fact that it is very dark in a movie theatre and that no one is looking at you, but at the one bright spot in the theatre - the screen.

2010 ended with a shockingly warm blast of air sweeping in from the south Pacific, causing a 55 degree rise in temperature at our house, from -10 F to 45 above. Even Fairbanks warmed up, but not quite so much as we did. The roads became wet, dirty, and slippery. By the time we headed home, the temperature had dropped down to 25 and the highway was very slick.  Not everyone who drove it succeeded at staying on it.

Some even wound up upside down.

I hope no one was badly hurt.

After we got home, Margie watched a little TV. I seldom care to watch TV, but was too tired to do anything else. So I sat on the couch next to her for awhile. Outside, on the other side of the marsh, someone was shooting fireworks.

In fact, all over Wasilla and any other place in South Central Alaska where people live, people were shooting off fireworks.

At the moment the iPhone flashed midnight, we toasted in the New Year. I do not precisely remember the toasts, but they did mention grandkids.

I stepped briefly outside to see what I could see. The air smelled of burnt gun powder. Country music blared from two houses down, where people were partying. I shot this image of a rocket blasting over that house and then stepped back into our house.

Margie and I did not last long after that.

2010 had ended hard and had left me exhausted.

I did not get up until about 10:00 AM. I figured a young couple such as us should not dirty dishes on the first day of the new year. "Want to go to breakfast?" I asked Margie, as she lay groggily in bed.

"Sure," she answered.

So I started to the car with the remote.

Soon, the Ford Escape was ready to drive us into the New Year.

Here we are, on Lucille Street, approaching the four-way stop at the intersection with Spruce. Metro Cafe sits just beyond, but they have been closed for two days. Carmen and Scott are in Arizona. Shoshana has been running the shop, but she and her boyfriend headed for Chena Hot Springs to celebrate the New Year. 

I had been a little bit jealous of that idea, to think how nice it would be to soak in those hot springs in the midst of the -40 degree cold, but with the big warmup, I was not quite so jealous anymore.

Still, it would be great fun to be in Chena Hot Springs today.

I wonder if I could ever get Margie to do something like that?

As we walked from the car to the entrance to Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant, Ubiquitous Raven flew over us. "Chooo'weet!"

The seat in the corner against the wall was not available, so I had to risk getting shot in the back. Still, this is the snuggest, coziest part of Family Restaurant because you are close to the kitchen and can feel the warmth of it.

Not that this made much difference on what is proving to be another very warm day, with the temp above freezing.

I hope it cools off soon.

I hate this kind of weather.

Especially on New Year's day.

As we we prepared to drive away, I saw this doggie in the car window next door.

The scene as we drove away from Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant, looking into the new year with both anticipation and apprehension.

I know for a fact that the year ahead will be a terrible one, and it will be an excellent one. This is the conflicted state in which it has begun and in which it will remain, because that is the state of all of our lives, all of the time.

May the excellent times outnumber and overpower the terrible ones.

That is my wish and prayer for the new year, for us all.

 

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