.... Nelson was an anthropologist who was paid by the Air Force to live with native Americans in the far north (one year each with the Inupiat and the Athabaskans) to learn their methods of living and working in the cold before the skills were lost to modern society. All for the purposes of bettering the AF survival knowledge.

I think he was a little hard on the Athabaskans in "Forest". After a year further north ("Ice") he had gained so much respect for the Inupiat (which I understand) he had gained their attitude toward the Athabaskans, which is not exactly one of reverence.