Edward Sapir
While there, Fredson worked with Edward Sapir, a noted linguist, and helped to classify Gwich'in within the Na-Dene language family. This work is documented in the book "John Fredson Edward Sapir Ha'a Googwandak" (1982), a collection of stories that Fredson told to Sapir. His work on communicating Gwich'in concepts of space and time may have also influenced Sapir's later work that established the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis.