My name is Matika Wilbur. I am from the Swinomish and Tulalip Tribes. Ten years ago, I sold everything, packed my bags, and hit the open road to begin a Kickstarter-funded mission to visit, engage with, and photograph more than 500 tribal nations. I learned many lessons, the most fundamental being: We are on Native land. My new book, Project 562, documents hundreds of people I met and stories I heard, a selection of which are excerpted on the following pages.
North America is Indian Country. America’s first people have a deep and knowing relationship with its lakes, rivers, cities, estuaries, canyons, and mountains. But the mainstream stories told to children in America fail to reflect this truth—as seen in the songs we teach, the holidays we celebrate, our romanticized tale of Hawai‘i as a paradise vacationland (instead of an illegally annexed kingdom), and so much more.
Together, these stories perpetuate a
