Ellen Bielawski is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in AlbertaViews, the Globe & 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.