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Sunday, October 20, 2013
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
ALASKA FEDERATION OF NATIVES CONVENTION
Katie John
Award will honor memory of Athabascan elder The following article appeared in the June 1 edition of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. By Mary Beth Smetzer
Athabascan elder Katie John was known publicly for her determination and eventual success in fighting for indigenous subsistence rights, and by her large, extended family for her traditional teachings, humor, gentle spirit and loving ways. John died early May 31 with family members at her side at the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage. She was 97 years old and resided at Mentasta Lake until shortly before her death. “Katie John’s example will
Hunter-Fisher award » Katie John, the Athabascan elder who successfully led the fight for recognition of Native subsistence rights, will be among those honored at the Alaska Federation of Natives convention on Oct. 26 at the Carlson Center. John died on May 31 at age 97, leaving a powerful legacy. She filed a landmark lawsuit in 1985 that eventually led to federal recognition of Alaska Native subsistence rights. John will be honored with the Hunter-Fisher award at the 2013 AFN convention, one of a dozen President’s Awards that will be given to this year. inspire generations to come,” said Alaska Federation of Native President Julie Kitka, in a statement. “Her name will be our rallying cry, to stand up for our subsistence rights, and to nurture our languages and traditions.” When the state refused to allow John and Mentasta Village elders to put up a fishwheel
at their family’s abandoned traditional fish camp, Batzulnetas, at the junction of Tanada Creek and the Copper River, they filed suit in 1985 in federal court and endured a long court battle over the landmark subsistence case. Born in 1915, John was raised in the traditional manner, living off the land under the tutelage of her mother and grandmoth-
er. In 2011, she was awarded an honorary doctorate degree by the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and at John the commencement ceremony, she spoke of that time. “We had no pencil, no paper. We don’t know how to read. We used our head,” she said. “Everything my mother told me, my grandmother told me, it’s in my head.” James Kari, a UAF linguistics professor emeritus, who worked with John on the Ahtna language, calls John “one of the great intellectuals of Native Alaska.”
“She would speak from her heart and from her memory about the Ahtna laws and traditions of her home area, the upper Copper River. Whenever she spoke in Ahtna about her language, history and beliefs, she would organize her thoughts meticulously and with great seriousness,” Kari said. U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski described John’s persistence and determination in her cause in a statement released Friday afternoon. “Katie John was an Alaska icon who devoted her life to ensuring that her Ahtna people had the opportunity to carry on traditional subsistence fishing in their ancestral homeland. JOHN » 27
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