Report on Driftwood Use Prepared for the Gwich’in Renewable Resource Board and Dr. Ross Wein, University of Alberta

During a meeting of the researchers involved with this project at the University of Alberta in late May, 2001 a list of preliminary questions was sketched out in order to both effectively describe the quantity, quality and movement of driftwood in the Gwich'in Settlement Area and to ascertain what kind of local knowledge exists about driftwood, and how it is used by Gwich'in around Fort McPherson. At the request of Ross Wein, we then spent the first two weeks of August, 2001 in the community of Fort McPherson in order to confirm and elaborate upon observations about driftwood use which fit into this set of questions. These questions about the importance of driftwood came out of a project concerned with the past and present uses of forest resources in the Gwich'in Settlement Area, Dr. David Anderson (then of the University of Alberta, now of the University of Aberdeen) principle investigator.