Craig Mishler has been doing ethnographic field work in rural Alaska since 1972. He taught at Anchorage Community College, and was a research professor at the Alaska Native Language Center, University or Alaska, Fairbanks. He also worked as an historian with the Alaska Department of Natural Resources and as a subsistence resource specialist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Division of Subsistence. Craig is the author, co-author, or editor of ten books, including Crooked on the Stretcher Board: Collected Essays on Gwich'in History, Language, and Folk Culture.

Kenneth Drizhuu Frank is an elder, storyteller, singer, drum maker, translator, author, and teacher. He's also a fluent speaker of the Gwich'in language and the grandson of Johnny and Sarah Frank. A former long-time village resident of Venetie and Arctic Village, he now lives with his wife Caroline in North Pole, Alaska. In 2014 Kenneth was a recipient of the Oscar Kawagley Indigenous Scholar Award at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Crystal Frank Welker, the oldest daughter of Kenneth Drizhuu Frank, is one of the youngest speakers of the Gwich'in language in Alaska. She's currently a graduate student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and lives with her husband in Arctic Village where she was raised.