She was raised in Juneau, Hoonah, and on seasonal hunting and fishing sites around Icy Straits, Glacier Bay, and Cape Spencer. Her first language is Tlingit. She began to learn English when she entered school at the age of 8. In 1976, she earned a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology from Alaska Methodist University (Alaska Pacific University). In the early 1970s, she married linguist Richard Dauenhauer, who had done his doctoral work on Tlingit language. She is international recognized for her work preserving and teaching the Tlingit language.

Dauenhauer researched Tlingit language for the Alaska Native Language Center at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks from 1972 to 1973. There she translated and transcribed works of Tlingit culture into books. Her books include Beginning Tlingit, published in 1976.

When Dauenhauer received a National Endowment for the Humanities grant, she and her family moved to Juneau, Alaska, in 1983. There she became a principal researcher in language and cultural studies at the Sealaska Heritage Foundation from 1983-1997. From October 10, 2012, to October 2014 she was Alaska States Poet Laureate.

Nora Marks was born May 8, 1927, the first of 16 children of Emma Marks (1913–2006) of Yakutat, Alaska, and Willie Marks (1902–1981), a Tlingit from Hoonah, Alaska. Nora’s Tlingit name at birth was Keix̱wnéi. Following her mother in the Tlingit matrilineal system, she was a member of the Raven moiety of the Tlingit nation, of the Yakutat Lukaax̱.ádi (Sockeye Salmon) clan, and of the Shaka Hít or Canoe Prow House, from Alsek River. In 1986 she was chosen as clan co-leader Yakutat Lukaax̱.ádi (Sockeye Salmon) clan. and as trustees of the Raven House and other clan property. In November 2010 she was given the title Naa Tláa (Clan Monther) as the ceremonial leader of the clan. Emma’s maternal grandfather had been Frank Italio (1870–1956), an informant to the anthropologist Frederica de Laguna whose knowledge was incorporated into De Laguna’s 1972 ethnography of the northern Tlingit, Under Mount St. Elias.