Kimowan Metchewais, Cold Lake Venus

In the summer of 2005, the season I photographed the main body of my project, Child Nation, I was sick and annoyed. I was fed up with careless culture clucking the demise of our people. America almost seemed charmed by the idea of our disappearance. And, while we might be invisible, we have not vanished. Indians are everywhere—children—I suspect millions.

I was sick because I had been carrying around a brain tumor for 13 years and it was acting up. I had new headaches. My vision often blurred. I was losing sensation in my left arm and hand. Throughout the summer, the symptoms grew more conspicuous, but I was desperate to show people the wondrous and uneasy emergence of our child nation, to present a creation story for our modern time.

Here was my assignment for that summer: Take 3,000 photographs and hope for a few good ones. Show the perfect horizon between water and sky. Show the eyes. Make something for us before it was too late.

Kimowan McLain [Metchewais]