For years I have been sharing stories and images on my website and photo blog about the history, culture, and contemporary issues of Native Americans and Native Alaskans. I grew up in Indian country, as did anyone who lived in the United States, because this was once land inhabited by the continent’s first peoples.
However, I felt a close connection to Native American and Indian stories because I spent my formative years until I was 18 years old in a region that was once home to a thriving mound-building culture, centered in St. Louis and Cahokia, Illinois. I spent a summer as a teenager learning archaeology and doing a dig at the Cahokia site. The names of the two great rivers surrounding me, the Missouri and Mississippi, both come from Native American peoples of the region.
When I moved out West, I again felt connected to Indian Country because of the resiliency of the Northwest tribes in preserving their culture and treaty rights that impacted how regional resources like fisheries are managed to this day. Names of rivers and places connected me to the tribes who long called the Northwest home. I also attended multiple Indian pow-wows, in Seattle and Omak, where Native American culture remains alive, vibrant, and contemporary.
Whenever I visit any location in the United States, I first try to learn about its history, before the arrival of Western cultures and settlers. In San Diego, for instance, I explored the old mission and learned about native uprising against the ruling Spanish in 1775, the same year American colonialists began their rebellion against the British Empire on the Eastern seaboard. At two different stages of my life, for more than six and a half years, I also lived in Alaska, home to more than 20 Native Alaskan languages and more than 200 tribes. One cannot understand Alaska without understanding its first peoples and how Native Alaskans continue to be a driving force in the economy and politics of the United States’ northernmost state.
You can find many past photo essays I have published on my photo blog, whatbeautifullight.com, by searching for keywords like “Indian,” “Native,” and “Native American.” The collection of photos here is thrown together from many projects I have pursued in the United States.
Keywords: Native American Photographs, Indian Country Photographs, Fort Spokane, Fort Spokane Reservation School, Native American Culture, Native American History, Shawnee Mission, Shawnee Boarding School, St. Louis Arch, Museum of Westward Expansion, Colville Nation, Colville Confederated Tribes, Seafair Pow-Wow, Mukleshoot Tribe, Quelchew, Quelchew Hanging Spot, Petroglyphs, Petroglyphs Columbia River, Barrow, Red Dog Mine, Graham Cave, Meeker, Utes, Hopewell Mound