Thank you for pointing this out, I had wanted to say the same thing. You can tell the wording is dancing around the fact ("before millions ... motoring"), but to make people think it was only inhabited by animals and leave out the idea that Native Americans lived there is a serious omission.

Unfortunately, the native inhabitants are no longer around to "reclaim" their domain. Imagine if that started to happen, and I don't mean the homeless camping more openly in parks these days.