As America celebrates Earth Day 2002, the Whatcom Museum of History & Art in Bellingham will present The Tree Project, April 21 through October 20, 2002. This unique exhibition ties together local and natural history, resource ecology, environmental art, photography and furniture making to show how a single tree can play a role in the community. The exhibit is the result of a three-year venture by artists Andrew Vallee and Wesley Smith who sought to document the life and transformation of one tree from forest to fine furniture..

In 1882, a single Big Leaf Maple seed took root on the banks of the south fork of the Nooksack River in northwestern Washington. As the seed continued to grow into a sapling and then mature into a full-grown tree, the lives and events of the Nooksack Indians, as well as the area's first pioneers, passed before it.