How to pronounce "Wasilla"

Palmer
Wasilla

One of my funnier adventures in Alaska happened back in 2007. This was before anyone (including me) had any idea who Sarah Palin was, and every time I drove into Wasilla, I wondered how you pronounced the name of the town. Was it WAH-si-la, was-SIL-uh, wa-sil-UH, or something else?

So as luck would have it, one day I ended up in the ER of the hospital that's here on the outskirts of town after a biking accident. Thinking this would be a good time to ask someone how to pronounce "Wasilla", I asked one of the nurses how to pronounce the name of the town.

She looked at me like I was a little crazy, or that maybe I hit my head a little too hard, and then said "Palmer".

(It turns out that the hospital that is on the "outskirts of town" is technically in Wasilla's sister city, Palmer. :)