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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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Monday
Nov092009

First snow forces me to take a break from the break that I took so that I could do nothing but work

DateMonday, November 9, 2009 at 7:09PM

It came very late this fall - which seems to me to have been the warmest fall that I ever remember here - but finally, Sunday night, it snowed. It's true that last Thursday, I put blog entries together all the way through this coming Friday so that until that time, I would not be disturbed by this blog but could just concentrate fully on my work.

But how can I ignore the first snow, especially when it comes so late?

Here is a kid, getting off of a school bus on Ward's. As you can see, somebody did a bit of fish-tailing.

And here is an AWAC, flying through the clear sky the snow left behind.

I hope the driver of this vehicle guided it safely to its destination. 

He biked with a heavy load. This was about noon, when the temperature was 17 degrees. We have yet to experience our first cold snap. Perhaps he is glad that it is late.

More jets in the clear sky.

And here is the decoy frozen into the surface of Little Lake.

Tilted stop sign, with Pioneer Peak in the background.

Crossing the bridge over the Little Su.

Somebody is behind me. I hope it's peaceful person. I don't want any trouble.

I still have my respiratory infection, by the way, but it is not as bad as it was.

AuthorWasilla, Alaska, by 300 | Comment3 Comments |
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Reader Comments (3)

Hope you get better soon! That bug is a nasty one! Love that first pic the most. Beautiful, peaceful and COLD. The first snow is always the best!

November 10, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterMikey

Love the photo with the school bus! I too have always loved the first snow, when the world was white and fresh! Beautiful.

November 10, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterGrandma Nancy

I cant tell you how excited I am now that the snow has finally arrived! I love snow. Like you I have been ill, now mainly with a lingering cough that keeps me awake at night, but that didnt stop me from going into the yard on Sunday and letting the snow fall upon me. We had a pool going in the house for the first snowfall and my 13 yr old daughter won, as she picked Monday, so she was off by just a few hrs. Oh, its currently 6* at my place. Not too bad!

November 10, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterLisaJ

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