Ellen Bielawski is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in AlbertaViews, The Globe and Mail, the Edmonton Journal, We Alaskans, Alaska and on CBC. She is currently at work on The Peoples' Prehistory of Alaska (Graphic Arts, 2003). A naturalized Canadian who was born and raised in Alaska, she completed a doctorate and postdoctoral research on native knowledge and Arctic science before she began working with Dene in 1992. She lived in Lutsel k'e, Northwest Territories, from 1992-97, working first as an environmental researcher for the Arctic Institute of North America, where she is a research associate, subsequently as the Lutsel k'e First Nation Treaty Negotiator. She divides her time between the Northwest Territories, Alaska, and Alberta, where her two sons attend school.