montler and valdez collaborated closely with local native speaking klallam, including hazel and ed sampson, adeline smith and bea charles. in 1999, montler published several guidebooks and lesson plans aimed at teaching klallam language basics through storytelling. montler also published the first klallam dictionary in 2012 through the university of washington press. he used terms and definitions contributed by hazel sampson, smith and charles to compile the dictionary.