Katie John - legal cases

After the State of Alaska closed down the former fish camp and village of Batzulnetas where Katie John grew up, she and another Ahtna Elder by the name of Doris Charles filed a proposal to the Alaska State Board of Fisheries requesting that the village of Batzulnetas be re-opened for subsistence fishing. This was at first denied , despite the fact that people down stream were allowed to take hundreds of thousands salmon for both sport and commercial uses. This pushed the Native American Rights Fund to file suit in the year 1985 under the title of ANILCA, to compel the state to reopen the fish camp. The state adopted regulations which provided for a limited fishery, in 1990, the federal district court put this regulation on the side lines because it was too restrictive. After that Alaska Supreme Courts McDowell v. state had struck down the states rural priority as unconstitutional under the stage constitution. Because of all this, Fish and Game became divide into two different legal regimes one that would be governed by the state law and the other by federal law. The Alaska Supreme court put its McDowell decision on hold in order for the state to have time to amend the constitution or bring its program under compliance with ANILCA. The legislature failed to act and the Secretaries of Interior Agriculture stated their intent on taking over the subsistence uses on federal lands. This would become effective July 1, 1990. The regulations that were adopted had excluded fishing in all navigable waters. Katie John argued this saying that ANILCAs public lands definition did apply to navigable waters. After the newly established regional native corporation Ahtna filed a 1,600 acre claim to the lands surrounding the village of Wrangell-St. Elias, Katie john and a few other people also began to file claims to smaller areas of land around their old fish camp and home, Batzulnetas. After this however, none of the natives attempted to resettle the area but by the early 1980's Katie John and one of the other natives that filed claims apparently began to talk about going back. In the year 1984, both john and Charles made a trip to Fairbanks to present their proposal to the Alaska Board of Fisheries who voted against it. In 1985, attorneys Robert T. Anderson and Lawrence Aschenbrenner, representing NARF (Native American rights fund) agreed to file suit on John and Charles behalf. Thai suit basically was requesting that the residents of Dot lake and Mentasta(where former residents of Batzulnetas are living) have the right to fish at the fish camp. Because of this, in 1987, the fish board allowed the locals that have obtained a permit to catch a maximum amount of 1,000 fish but the following year the board loosened up and removed the max. fish number. This still did not sit well with both john and Charles who still felt that they didn't have all of their rights. At this point in time they joined up with the Mentasta village. They filed a sour because they fell that they should be able to fish all they want without a permit. The board denied their request. More events like this involving john and other party members continued on and still continue to occur over Katie Johns legacy.