Bill Hess is an award-winning photographer and writer whose stories and images have appeared in National Geographic, the New York Times and Time-Life Books. Born in Utah, he met his wife doing Mormon mission work among the Lakota then moved to her White Mountain Apache reservation in Arizona, where he produced the tribal newspaper for three years. In 1981 he drove a VW with his family to Alaska and has worked here ever since as a publisher, photographer, and writer. His book, “Gift of the Whale: The Inupiat Bowhead Hunt, A Sacred Tradition” was published in 1999.