Over the years, Jan Harper Haines has collected the often shamanic stories of her Athabascan ancestors. In l935 her mother was the first Alaska Native woman to graduate from the University of Alaska and a building was named for her. Jan has written for numerous publications, including articles about her great uncle Walter Harper, who in 1913 was the first man to summit Denali. A former secondary education teacher, Jan also has a twenty-year career in advertising. She is a graduate of the University of Alaska and lives in northern California with her husband, Lawrence Haines, an architect.