 In 1991, he was adopted by Mark Jacobs into the Tlingit Dakl'aweidí clan.He was an associate professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan before going to Dartmouth College, where he was granted tenure in 1993.Kan's most recent publications reveal the relationship between Tlingit and anthropologists as well as American attitudes toward images of and relations with the Tlingit in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.