NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A photographic and narrative celebration of contemporary Native American life and cultures, alongside an in-depth examination of issues that Native people face, by celebrated photographer and storyteller Matika Wilbur of the Swinomish and Tulalip Tribes. “This book is too important to miss. It is a vast, sprawling look at who we are as Indigenous people in these United States.”—Tommy Orange (Cheyenne and Arapaho), author of There There Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal In 2012, Matika Wilbur sold everything in her Seattle apartment and set out on a Kickstarter-funded pursuit to visit, engage, and photograph people from what were then the 562 federally recognized Native American Tribal Nations. Over the next decade, she traveled six hundred thousand miles across fifty states—from Seminole country (now known as the Everglades) to Inuit territory (now known as the Bering Sea)—to meet, interview, and photograph hundreds of Indigenous people. The body of work Wilbur created serves to counteract the one-dimensional and archaic stereotypes of Native people in mainstream media and offers justice to the richness, diversity, and lived experiences of Indian Country. The culmination of this decade-long art and storytelling endeavor, Project 562 is a peerless, sweeping, and moving love letter to Indigenous Americans, containing hundreds of stunning portraits and compelling personal narratives of contemporary Native people—all photographed in clothing, poses, and locations of their choosing. Their narratives touch on personal and cultural identity as well as issues of media representation, sovereignty, faith, family, the protection of sacred sites, subsistence living, traditional knowledge-keeping, land stewardship, language preservation, advocacy, education, the arts, and more. A vital contribution from an incomparable artist, Project 562 inspires, educates, and truly changes the way we see Native America. “This book is too important to miss. It is a vast, sprawling look at who we are as Indigenous people in these United States. Here is how we talk, what we talk about, and what stories people need to hear from us. It spans a land and its people unfathomably older than the country it finds itself a part of. This book is straight from the mouths of this land’s original people, through the lens and artistry of a vital photographer and storyteller. Open this book to any page and you will find life, a story, and the brilliance and beauty of our people alongside our pain and humor. Our diversity is on full display in these pages. Matika Wilbur has gifted us this vision, this project, this jewel of a book.” —Tommy Orange, author of There There Matika Wilbur is a critically acclaimed social documentarian and photographer from the Swinomish and Tulalip peoples of coastal Washington. Project 562, a crowd-funded initiative to visit, engage, and photograph people from over 562 sovereign Tribal Nations in North America, is her fourth major creative venture elevating Native American identity and culture. She co-hosts the All My Relations podcast with Dr. Adrienne Keene as a platform that invites guests to delve into subjects facing Native peoples today and explore the connections between land, non-human relatives, and one another. She has offered over 300 keynotes at such places as Harvard, Yale, Berkeley, Google, TED Talks, the National Education Association, and National Geographic Explorer , and is a regular contributor to the New York Times . Project Mauna A Wākea This is a story about land, culture, and connection to place—this is the story to protect Mauna a Wākea on the Big Island of Hawai‘i. Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian people) have been fighting to stop the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) since 2009, and in the summer of 2019, a resistance camp was established at Pu‘u Huluhulu. Kia‘i (protectors) slept in a parking lot over a lava field at the bottom of the access road to the summit of Mauna Kea for nearly a year to stop construction of what would be the largest telescope in the Northern Hemisphere. Mauna Kea is a dormant volcano and is the tallest mountain on Earth from the seafloor to its summit. Its abbreviated name (which means “white mountain”) is short for Mauna a Wākea, the mountain of the Hawaiian deity Wākea. For Kānaka Maoli, it is considered the most sacred place, fundamental in their creation story and time-honored in their traditions. The destruction and ongoing desecration from tourism and the existing thirteen telescopes on Mauna Kea have been devastating to the mountain’s fragile and unique ecosystem and are blatantly disrespectful to Kānaka cultural beliefs. Our All My Relations podcast team flew to Hawai‘i in January of 2020 to meet with the kūpuna (elders), activists, and scholars behind the movement. When we arrived, it was sunny and warm; the air smelledgood and it quenched our sun-thirsty, Pacific Northwest souls. But when w