Chinook drummers during Tansy Point Days at Tansy Point in Warrenton, a site with significance to historic tribal treaties.

Eight years ago, Amiran White began a project with the Chinook Indian Nation to document the lives and traditions of tribal members.

The photographer, who has a background in journalism across Oregon, Pennsylvania and New Mexico, including as a stringer for the Associated Press, became interested after hearing Chinook Indian Nation chairman Tony Johnson speak on the tribe’s ongoing struggle for federal recognition at the University of Oregon.

“When I heard that story, I started asking questions and finding out more,” she said.

Now, White’s images of events like the First Salmon Ceremony, Tribal Canoe Journey and Chinook Winter Gathering will be shown in a new exhibit at the Columbia River Maritime Museum, opening with a reception this week at 6 p.m. Thursday.

The first part of the exhibit’s title — “ntsayka ilíi ukuk: This is Our Place” — comes from the tribal language Chinuk Wawa.

The collection comes ahead of “Cedar and Sea,” a larger exhibit about Indigenous maritime culture along the greater Pacific coast between southern Oregon and Alaska, expected to open in November.

White hopes viewers of her photographs will walk away with curiosity to learn more about the Chinook — not just their past, but also their present and future.

“It’s a way of trying to remind people of the land that they’re on,” she said. “Maybe they have a slightly deeper or better understanding of Chinook culture, that they are alive and living in this moment.”