This article examines the role of gender in structuring subsistence activities in one Chipewyan foraging society. While activities of both women and men are addressed, the focus of this paper is on the contribution of women as hunters, trappers and fishers. The perspective is materialist and ethno-archaeological. The project involves a three-way dialogue among a sociocultural anthropologist, an archaeologist, and the Chipewyan women and men of subarctic Canada regarding the latter's' understanding of their recent history. The concrete archaeological manifestation of this history is represented in a network of 44 late historic sites (winter hunting camps, summer fishing stations, winter domestic settlements, and trading outposts) documented and analyzed by the principle investigators in field research. A particularly stimulating methodological development was the integration of native consultants in the research process. The general ethnoarchaeological approach to this paper combined the use of historical analogies and a concern with site formation processes, this research extended the "post-processual" search for meaning in past cultural systems by cultivating the humanistic dimension of native consultants' narratives. By asking Chipewyan consultants to interpret artefacts and structural features at historic sites artefacts and features often created by the specific consultants or their ancestors provocative insights on past behaviour, and the meanings of past behaviour, were obtained. These native interpretations challenge our own western academically informed view and provide a much-needed balance in the collective deciphering of the past. This well-researched article is complete with maps, photographs, and bibliography.