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Alaska History Projects

Protect, Preserve, and Promote Alaska History

by maintaining interest in audio/video/image collections and managing productions of educational material in film and text products.

Since 1986, Cynthea L Ainsworth, Ph.D. has worked to meet the needs of communities seeking to form and make local collections of oral history and language available. She currently works through her businesses, Alaska History Projects and non-profit Alaska History Conservancy.

Funders of Past Projects Include:

Wrangell St. Elias National Park Service

Elmer E. Rasmuson Library

Project Currently in Development

Katie John Collection

MultiMedia Digitization Project

Life history is a door into cultural history. The Katie John Collection (over 1,000 hours) represents the largest group of analog recordings with or concerning an Alaska Native Elder. However, without digitization and archival finding aids, Katie’s door remains closed.

Katie John (1915 – 2013) is famous because of the Alaska Subsistence Case that she fought and won. Katie is important because only through her collection can we learn about traditional childhood in 1920 and Native life during the changing times of the 20th century.

In 1993 Katie John and Dr. Cynthea L. Ainsworth began recording Katie’s memories. They worked intermittently until Katie’s sudden death in 2013. The most stable format at that time was analog, which forms the bulk of the collection.

Now many of the audio and video tapes are older than their expected span of 15 years, preventing any play of the tapes other than during digitization.

In 2016 Alaska History Conservancy administered a grant from the Alaska Humanities Forum to consult with UAF Polar Regions Archives and draft a Data Management Plan for housing the Katie John Collection.

On May 31, 2019, Katie John Day was instituted. Access to her recorded life history will give that day full meaning to the people who can only meet Katie through her Collection.

Photo: This picture was taken at the original Yukon Native Language Centre, Whitehorse, Canada, in November of 2010. Credit: Cynthea L. Ainsworth. Katie holds the ethnographic book she produced with Cynthea L. Ainsworth, published 2002. Katie worked with Cynthea and YNLC staff for 13 years. She was also part of the original summit in 1973 that established the first alphabet for all dialects in the Ahtna language. Ultimately, Katie worked with every linguist of her day, recording and advising, to produce language materials for pre-school and primary grades in her Mentasta Upper Ahtna dialect.

Katie John’s family at Batzulnetas Village in 1919.

Photo caption from Mentasta Remembers: “Few early 20th centrury photographs exist of the Upper Ahtna. A. Bailey took this well known photo of Charley Sanford and his family in Batzulnetas in 1919. Katie is the smallest child on the right. Left to right: Lucy Albert, Nulas, Sergeant, Annie, Charley Sanford, his wife, Sarah, their children, Susie, Frank, Mary, Katie, and Lena. Photo courtesy of the National Archives.”

This photo of Katie’s family is important for several reasons. They stand in Batzulnetas Village, off of Nabesna Road in East, Southcentral Alaska. This historic village became the reason for Katie’s Supreme Court Case to re-open fishing for her family in the village where she grew up. The case changed fishing laws throughout Alaska.

To celebrate legal success in 1996, the Batzulnetas site became the home of an ongoing Culture Camp, featured as a two hour installment in the Upper Ahtna Traditional Knowledge Series, Ep 4: Upper Ahtna Culture Camp.

Katie John standing at Kluane Lake in April 1997. Photo by Cynthea L. Ainsworth ©

Katie was 81 is this picture, taken in April on the dramatic and historic Kluane Lake in Yukon, Canada, where a war was fought between Alaskan and Canadian villages. In this picture she was just up and walking again after slipping on ice the winter before while bringing in fire wood. The logs she was carrying fell on her legs and broke them both. She was very happy to be walking again on this spring day, posing at the edge of the melting lake, with huge ice jams rising behind her.

Make a donation to

the Katie John Project!

Past Projects Include:

Mentasta Remembers

Cover of Mentasta Remembers by Cynthea Ainsworth, Katie John, and Fred John

Mentasta Remembers is a series of snapshots in visual and narrative form that sketches a portrait of how Mentasta’s past is shaping its present. From the introduction to Mentasta Remembers:

This book summarizes information from pertinent ethnographies, includes endnotes for further discussion of related topics, and adds to the ethnographic record on potlatches and traditional life through a series of oral history interviews with Katie John. Other contributing Elders from Mentasta are the late Chief Fred John, Steven John, and Johnny Nicolai. Katie’s daughter, Nora John David, and granddaughter, Kathryn John Martin, have provided steady stewardship throughout the project.

Scan of the table of contents of Mentasta Remembers by Cynthea Ainsworth, Katie John, and Fred John.</p> <p>PAGE TITLE: Table of Contents.</p> <p>SECTION TITLE: History of Mentasta Lake Village, 13.<br /> Territory & Trade, 15.<br /> Seasons, 16.<br /> Wars, 24.<br /> Childhood, 25.<br /> Klondike, 28.<br /> Missions, 31.<br /> Roads, 32.<br /> Schools, 34.</p> <p>SECTION TITLE: The Co-op, 37.</p> <p>SECTION TITLE: Chiefs & Heroes, 41.<br /> SUB-SECTION TITLE: Historic Mentasta Chiefs, 41.<br /> Fred John, 42.<br /> Charley Sanford, 44.<br /> SUB-SECTION TITLE: First Chiefs, 48.<br /> Eva John, 48.<br /> Norman Ewan & Kathryn John Martin, 48.<br /> Nora John David, 49.<br /> Sandy John, 49.<br /> Rose Rice, 49.<br /> SUB-SECTION TITLE: Other Heroes, 50.<br /> Katie John, 50.<br /> Houston Sanford, 51.<br /> Ruth Hicks, 51.<br /> Fred Rungee, 51.</p> <p>SECTION TITLE: Potlatch, 57.<br /> Introduction, 57.<br /> Clans, 58.<br /> Mentasta Memorial Potlatch, 60.<br /> Invitations, 60.<br /> Length of a Potlatch, 61.<br /> Food, Preparations & Serving, 62.<br /> Guests, Arrivals, & Events, 63.<br /> Gifts, 65.<br /> Dancing, 66.<br /> Author's Notes, 68.<br /> Giving, 69.<br /> Last Night Dance & Speeches, 70.</p> <p>SECTION TITLE: Reclaiming Batzulnetas, 75.<br /> Reclaiming the Past, 75.<br /> Katie John v. United States of America, 76.<br /> Cultural Impact, 78.<br /> Batzulnetas Culture Camp, 78.</p> <p>SECTION TITLE: The Lost Sister, 83.<br /> Katie's Mother's Story, 83.<br /> Chitina's "Lost Tribes", 84.<br /> Katie's Odyssey, 85.<br /> Family & Identity, 86.</p> <p>SECTION TITLE: Endnotes, 89.</p> <p>SECTION TITLE: Further Reading on Mentasta, 95.</p> <p>SECTION TITLE: Katie & Fred's Children, 96.
Scan of page 53 of Mentasta Remembers by Cynthea Ainsworth, Katie John and Fred John. PHOTO CAPTION 1: Adam Sanford. Photo courtesy Ruth Hicks Memorial Photo Collection. PHOTO CAPTION 2: Fred John and Jack John Justin at Jack's house on the Nabesna Bar at the end of Nabesna Road. Long Lucy was Jack's mother. Photo courtesy Ruth Hicks Memorial Photo Collection. PHOTO CAPTION 3: Long Lucy John of Mentasta, 1957. Photo courtesy Mentasta Clinic Photo Collection. PHOTO CAPTION 4: Long Lucy and her husband Nabesna John (somtimes called Chisana John). Photo courtesy Mentasta Lake Katie John School Collection. PHOTO CAPTION 5: Adam and Kate Sanford. Photo courtesy Ruth Hicks Memorial Photo Collection. PHOTO CAPTION 6: Adam and Kate Sanford, 1950. Photo courtesy Ruth Hicks Memorial Photo Collection.
Scan of page 53 of Mentasta Remembers by Cynthea Ainsworth, Katie John and Fred John. PHOTO CAPTION 1 : Frank and Abbie Sanford staying in the recreation hall. Photo courtesy Ruth Hicks Memorial Photo Collection. PHOTO CAPTION 2: Katie and her brother, Steven John. Photo courtesy Mentasta Clinic Photo Collection. PHOTO CAPTION 3: Katie in 1957 with her favorite dog, Spike (left), and Bully. Spike used to tend her muskrat line for her, bringing the animals to her door at night and guarding them till she got up and cleaned them. Photo courtesy Ruth Hicks Memorial Photo Collection. PHOTO CAPTION 4: Cherry and Johnny Nicolai. Photo courtesy Mentasta Clinic Memorial Photo Collection. PHOTO CAPTION 5: Short Lucy Sam of Fish Creek at Mentasta. She wears a traditional beaver coat with button decoration. Photo courtesy Mentasta Clinic Photo Collection.
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Indigenous Language Series

The Indigenous Language Series consists of three projects developed from 2000 to 2019, and includes 21 print, audio, and digital resources for Ahtna language learning for all ages.

One of these projects, Ahtna Lessons for Web, is available for free online. Designed to provide structured lessons for independent study of the Ahtna language, this series of online books is organized in the traditional seasonal patterns of Athabascan people.

Ahtna Lessons was made available online in 2019 and includes 6 titles with both text and sound in English and Ahtna. Funded by DOE & Cynthea L. Ainsworth for Mt. Sanford Tribal Consortium.

See Web Lessons Online

Upper Ahtna Traditional Knowledge Series

Upper Ahtna Indians live in the east south central interior of Alaska at the top of the Copper River Valley. In the 1990’s, leaders began supporting ethnographic videography and interviews with members of the last generation raised traditionally in the Upper Valley. Recognizing that their children and grandchildren were living with more modern world distractions in their lives, these Elders decided to speak to the future by sharing their Traditional Knowledge through this video series.

Over 25 years later, this unique 7 hour series presents their Traditional Knowledge in 5 episodes.

The Upper Ahtna Traditional Knowledge Series was shot between 1996-2006. Funded by DOE & Cynthea L. Ainsworth for Mt. Sanford Tribal Consortium.

View full series online
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