I pause this series until after the funeral, but here is Katie John with Governor Tony Knowles and the fish that made the difference

I stayed up very late last night - or rather until early this morning - determined to get this project together and organized enough to allow me put up all my posts in this series on Katie John in time to leave for Mentasta and arrive there before midnight tonight. I planned to schedule the posts to come out sporadically from now into Sunday, by which time I would be home from the funeral.

I had a total of five stories left to post, the first two of which would require a substantial number of words. The remaining three would need just a few words to set the context for the pictures.

I did in, fact, post all the images for the first stories in draft form but without the text. I figured it would take me a few hours to construct the text for each and then I could do the remaining posts fairly quickly and leave for Mentasta.

When I got up a few hours after going to bed, I realized it wasn't going to work. My brain was not up to working with all those words at high speed. The tires on the Ford Escape were practically bald, needed to be replaced and so did the transmission fluid. Margie had scheduled all this for yesterday, but when I showed up to get it done, the mechanic who was supposed to do it hadn't come in. We had to reschedule for today.

Plus, there are a number of other things I need to do before I leave. Right now, it is 11:00 AM but I will schedule this post to appear tonight at 9:00 PM. By then, I should be drawing close to Mentasta. Maybe I will even be there, but I doubt it. It is a five hour drive. It used to take me two hours in the Running Dog.

After I return, I will complete all the posts I have planned for the series, but I will not rush myself. I will miss the immediacy of having posted before Katie's funeral, but this blog is not a news operation. Hopefully, I will create something with value that will last, a site interested people can find their way to for years, perhaps decades, to learn or remember.

The above picture is an outtake from the second of the two draft posts I had uploaded the pictures to. I took it on July 15, 2001, shortly after Governor Knowles arrived with Katie at Batzulnetas and went to see her fishwheel at the place where Tanada Creek flows into the Copper River. This is the place she had fought so hard to assert her right to fish at - just as her father and ancestors before had done.

Now, she faced one more potential obstacle that could remove her legal right under US and Alaska law - but never under Indian law. Governor Knowles could appeal to the US Supreme Court on behalf of the State of Alaska. Were he to do so and win, Katie would have no guaranteed legal right to fish at this place anymore.

When the governor arrived, there were two salmon in the box. He climbed down and plucked this one out. The story of how Governor Knowles would lose a fish for Katie and in so doing hand her a victory that would uphold the right of her, her family, Native and rural subistence fishers across this state to fish, hopefully forever, should follow three posts from now.

Index to full series. * Designates the main, story-telling, posts:

Dr. Katie John, Ahtna Athabascan champion of Native rights before the Supreme Court of the United States: October 15, 1915 - May 31, 2013

July, 2001: Enroute to Batzulnetas to cover historic meeting between Katie John and Governor Tony Knowles; In a couple of hours I will go to Katie John's Anchorage memorial

*Katie John's Anchorage visitation: the void, the continuation 

*In 1999, Katie John gathered a host of young people together, most of them descendants, and took them camping at Batzulnetas

I pause this series until after the funeral, but here is Katie John with Governor Tony Knowles and the fish that made the difference

This morning at 4:00 AM - leaving Mentasta after Katie John's funeral and potlatch

*Katie John's funeral and potlatch: on the night before burial, dance wiped away the tears

*Katie John finished well - her descendants mourn, celebrate her life, bury her, eat, dance give gifts and prepare to carry on

One image from Katie John's victory celebration - the story of how she won her victory will soon follow

*Katie John and Tony Knowles at Batzulnetas: a fish escaped, the ice cream was hard and a Governor listened

*When Katie John became Dr. Katie John - closing post