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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Friday
Dec192008

Kalib turns on the charm for Granny B waitress; jet passes overhead; Lisa at work

It was just after noon and I had eaten nothing since last evening, as I had to do a blood draw today. After the draw, we headed toward Anchorage to see a movie and to drop Kalib off with his parents, but first I needed to eat so we stopped at Granny B's, where they serve breakfast all day.

Kalib quickly began to flirt with the waitress.

She was a pushover; she quickly succumbed to his charms.

Kalib enjoyed the attention. Breakfast was good. Afterward, we dropped Kalib off at his Dad's place of work, where they were having a Christmas party and he would meet Santa.  We then headed to the movie.

Slumdog Millionaire is what we saw. One of the characters in it was named Latika and in one scene, when she was a young girl begging on the streets of Mumbai, she reminded of a very specific young beggar girl who crossed my path in Bangalore. 

The movie got out about 3:45, so we climbed into the car to drive to see Lisa and this is what it looked like at that time.

Lisa at work at the admissions desk at the family medicine clinic of the Alaska Native Medical Center.

After we got home, I found the pictures of the girl in Bangalore and I was going to put them in this post. I decided the post had enough images, however.

So I will make a follow-up post, and put the Latika who was probably not Latika at all in that entry.

 

Thursday
Dec182008

Cinnamon roll at Mocha Moose, rescue vehicle gets stuck, Kalib hurls Kleenix to the floor

I don't often go to Mocha Moose, but this afternoon I wanted a cinnamon role and they have some pretty good ones. So, at 4:00 PM, I ignored my usual places and went to Mocha Moose. Here I am, waiting in line.

The lady ahead of me gets her coffee. She did not get a cinnamon roll. I don't know why. I'm pretty certain she would have enjoyed her coffee more if she had a cinnamon roll.

Earlier in the day, about noon, when I went walking, I came upon the same van that I had found stuck Monday night and had photographed on Tuesday - the day the worried owner had told me he would come back and yank it out.

Looks like he came back all right, with help, and that help got stuck, too. You can see that they even tried to yank out the help vehicle, but had not succeeded. At least the third vehicle did not get stuck.

These kinds of exciting events take place continually right here, in Wasilla, Alaska.

Muzzy gives the scene some perspective. Actually, the van had moved a fair piece from where I found it Monday. And no one had vandalized it.

Kalib discovered Kleenix, and how fun it is to remove one, throw it on the floor and remove another. When an adult tells him to stop it, he just smiles at the defenseless sould like this, removes another tissue and hurls it onto the floor.

"Stop it, Kalib! Stop it right now!"

And here is the garden center end of Wal-Mart. I brought some blooming tulips back and replanted them in the back yard.

How pretty they looked in the snow! I tried to photograph them for you, but it was beyond my meagre abilities to do justice to such beauty and I did not succeed.

 

Wednesday
Dec172008

Two girls from Point Hope photograph themselves

I back up a little bit here, to November 23, at the Challenge Life basketball tournament for middle schoolers, held in Fairbanks. I have finally begun to edit those photos and will incorporate a selection of them into a much bigger project that I am working on.

As I shot the Point Hope boys battling Fort Yukon in their final game, I noticed these two members of the Point Hope girls team photographing themselves from just behind the basket.

Tuesday
Dec162008

The past 20 hours: three scenes from Wards Road

Jacob and Muzzy, top of Wards Road, last night's walk.

Car coming down Ward's Road, noon walk.

Van off the road, today's walk. Jacob and I first spotted this van on last night's walk. A car was coming down the hill, so I focused on this vehicle to see, if by chance, the reflection of the headlights of that car off the snow might cast enough light on this vehicle for me to take a photograph.

As I stood there, camera pointed at the disabled van, a car pulled up and stopped. Sitting at the wheel was a middle-aged lady with silver streaks in her hair and beside her, a young man - maybe late teens or early 20's, his features slender and sharp.

They looked at us with what appeared to be a mix of hostility and suspicion.

"That's my vehicle," the young man stated emphatically, "I slid off the road earlier today."

It was clear to me that he suspected that we might have some kind of evil intent towards his vehicle.

"You slid off the road, huh? That must have given you a thrill."

He assured me that it had not; that he had been calm and collected through the entire descent and that it was no big deal. He had even managed to drive the car enough to reposition it a bit so that it would be easier to haul out.

"Looks like you're a little short on manpower to pull it out right now," I noted the obvious.

"We're going to come back and get it tomorrow," he said.

"I don't think you have anything to worry about," I told him. "It should be safe. Nobody but a pedestrian could see it and there won't be many of them, maybe just us."

I wished him luck. They went there way, we went our way.

I do not blame him for being suspicious. Cars left alongside the road overnight out here often greet the next morning with their wheels and tires gone, their windows smashed, anything of value removed.

But now it is day and the car is still there, in view for all who pass by to see. Hopefully, they will yank it out of there before dark.

This time of year, if it isn't dark, it soon will be.

Tuesday
Dec162008

A wreck at Parks & Main; another in the kitchen

Tow truck driver. He has just arrived at the scene. Locked in traffic, I drive by at a creep. I had just dropped Margie off at work and now I was headed home.

Police officer, walking towards truck driver. Looks pretty minor. Driver of car peers out sheepishly. I do not know anything about this accident other than what is in the picture. That's how it is when you drive - you get all kinds of glimpses of other people's lives: happy moments, sad, tragic, routine, mundane, and most often that is all the information about these people whose lives crossed yours that you will ever have.

The wreck in the kitchen. Kalib has discovered a new musical instrument. Oddly enough, wherever he wanders in the house these days, this is what it looks like behind him.