Along the Trail

Spring 2025, FORUM Magazine

AS MY GREAT-GRANDMOTHER, Mary, walked through the boreal forest from our traditional winter village, where our salmon relatives shared about their long journeys, a sudden pain in her abdomen seized her attention. She rested for a moment and was able to catch her breath. Mary welcomed the warmth of the sun as she traversed the same path our ancestors had passed through since time immemorial. She loved listening to her aunties and mom laugh as they teased each other along the way. Her thoughts were interrupted again as discomfort returned with increased power. Mary was forced to place her hand on the gnarled black spruce beside her. The tree steadied her. She could feel the pulse from the earth extending through her body as she gathered strength and stood upright. With a deep breath, she began to walk along the well-traveled trail to fish camp. It was that time of year when she and her family were preparing to welcome the salmon back upriver. A smile brightens across her face as she thinks of the months ahead, “Ahh, to have the fresh taste of salmon again.” Like the salmon venture out to the ocean and then return, our family ventures out upon the land to sustain life through the long winter months and return to the same winding rivers that spill over with salmon.

The smile quickly disappeared as the pressure became insurmountable; she staggered in the tundra. Not wanting to get wet from the melting snow, Mary was left with no choice but to sit and rest. After a couple of minutes, she came to terms with what the rhythmic pattern communicated to her. Two ravens fly overhead, playing and calling out as Mary turns on all fours. Her long black hair caught in the Labrador tea leaves, she breathes the beautiful aroma in and thinks to herself, “Wow, this is happening now.”

The time is now.

Her second daughter is ready to come into this world and feel her mother’s arms embrace, and help welcome the salmon return. Mary had nourished her body with the foods generously given to the Tatl’ahwt’aenn¹, those who steward the land, rivers, and animals, and kept active even through the long winters.

Mary rested, waiting, thinking about how she and her brother, Fred John Sr., walked the trapline, checking for animals they would feed their family with. Each time, she hoped for a nunni² as it was one of Mary’s favorites, and she got excited to have the quills to sew with. She loved the winter evenings when family stories were shared and riddles were made to ponder as they drifted to sleep.

She settled upon an answer to one of her brother’s old riddles left unsolved as she waited for the next contraction, which she knew would be the final one. On the trail between Suslota and Nataełde³ Molly John was born. After cleaning baby off, she wrapped Molly up in the tsa’ zes⁴ she kept with her just in case Molly decided the time was right. Mary was prepared with a birch bark cradle that she carried everywhere, and gently laid Molly in it, then strapped baby Molly on her back. She walked back to the black spruce that had held her up on the trail and dug a hole through the snow and deep into the earth. She placed the placenta carefully inside and buried it there while giving gratitude to the part of her that was created to nourish her daughter. “Tsin’aen Nek’eltaeni, Tsin’aen tatsaye’, Tsin’aen⁵ for my beautiful daughter who will carry our clan forward.”

Mary carried Molly to Nataełde⁶ and joined the family as they sang a welcome song⁷ to the salmon while the redfish swam past the banks they stood upon.

Molly was born in the early part of the summer of 1933. Mary and her partner, Guy John, raised Molly and her sisters, Jenny and Helen, together in the expanse of the beautiful boreal forest through the Wrangell St. Elias National Park. In Nataełde (renamed Batzulnetas by Lt. Allen)⁹, the girls learned how to make hwtsiił¹⁰ and preserve łuk’ae¹¹ to sustain their family throughout the year. Guy went out on the trap line in the winter to catch animals for food, clothing, and tools. The sisters learned gratitude, humility, respect, and how to be hard workers as they processed the animals with my great-grandma, Mary.

As the first-born granddaughter and carrier of our clan through my family’s lineage, I was the only one my grandma Molly spoke our language to and shared the same values she and her sisters were taught. Times had changed since her children were born, and passing on traditional knowledge and languages became important after all the cultural loss. At age 92, she continues to share with me important aspects of our lives, including the memories of her childhood. The responsibility of passing on our ways of knowing weighs heavily upon my shoulders.

As an adult, my grandma had her trapline, butchered the animals, tanned the hides, and sewed regalia for our family to help provide an income. At a recent doctor's appointment, I accompanied her, she was asked how she was doing. My grandma said, “I just got back from the trapline”. The doctor and I had a good laugh. I can just see her out on the land doing what she loves. However, it is just a memory from times of old. The dementia she was diagnosed with brings back experiences from long ago, leaving my family and me wishing her mind were as sharp as when she used to whip us all into shape.

Grandma grew up learning to be strong and independent. During her childhood, there were prospectors, missionaries, and other people coming to Alaska for the first time. With the arrival of new people also came consequences. My great-grandma Mary contracted tuberculosis when Grandma Molly was five years old. Mary’s untimely death led to the dispersal of people who lived in the winter village of Suslota and the summer village of Batzulnetas¹² and moved to Kluti Kaah,¹³ Palmer, and other communities. Molly’s sisters were both placed in orphanages in hopes that a family would adopt them and they would have a chance at a “good”¹⁴ life. Molly appeared to look more Native than her sisters, and Guy decided to raise her as he didn’t think her darker complexion would help her get adopted.

Guy moved to Palmer, where Molly helped take care of his parents. Molly has shared over the years how she “packed them around, gave them baths, cut wood, cooked and cleaned for them.”¹⁵ She recently wondered if they just kept her around as a slave. When she shared that with me, I tried lightening the memory and let her know that I tell my children that we all have to do our part. My grandma’s face looked like she had to contemplate the idea a bit more. I wonder about the treatment my grandma experienced, especially from her grandmother. Some of the stories sound abusive to me, like sending Molly out in the snow barefoot when she was in trouble. Her grandma also told her, “Girls are no good”. This is odd to me because we are a matrilineal culture; it is the women who carry our bloodlines forward. I would have expected that she would have been thankful to have a granddaughter to pass on our traditions to.

Could her grandparents have been using my grandma for her ability to take care of them? This pondering is influenced by the time in which I’ve grown up. Children are not expected to help their families as much anymore. In our American society, we view children differently and pour our entire lives and energy into their upbringing. Conjecturing between societal norms of the past and present still leaves the truth forever to be buried in the earth. There are components of our lives that many of us do not want to acknowledge, and we leave them for the next generation to decide what they are going to do with the pain. I think my great-great-grandmother used intimidation to create change. The traumatic history our Indigenous peoples have endured has created cycles of negative behavior that we get to choose to heal from or not. As a mother myself, I am doing the best I can to raise responsible, respectful, kind, hard-working, loving children. However, I’ve made mistakes and have had to ask for forgiveness. I hope my great-great-grandmother recognized her faults and tried to reconcile things. Times were different back then.

In our Athna culture, we hold family and community connectedness in high regard. The benefit my grandma Molly received was getting to be around her family, developing the characteristics of strength, mental fortitude, and our cultural traditions being passed on to her. I’m not sure about unpacking the stories my grandmother shared with me. There is so much I'm not saying....I'm fearful of the impact on my family, I'm fearful of the impact on Indigenous people, and I don’t want to perpetuate stereotypical thoughts. Not many Native people share the truth of what happened in our families and especially about the behavior of some of our elders. This article is one of my attempts at healing from pieces of the past so my children and grandchildren can move our lineage in a healthy way forward.

Guy John’s decision to help our family was a decision made with little time to contemplate the complexities of future ramifications. The decision to send some of your children to be raised by other people’s families must not have been an easy one. It is hard to fully understand the challenges of life at that time. Guy just lost his partner, many relatives had already died, and he had to do the best he could to care for his parents. Outsiders were telling our people our ways of life were wrong. A tsunami of change was at hand.

When Molly became a teenager, she (like many teenagers) felt the need to assert herself and make a change. She walked from Palmer to Mentasta¹⁶ to live with her auntie, Katie John. Katie John is well known for standing up for our family’s rights to fish on our traditional lands in the Wrangell St. Elias National Park.¹⁷ It is the place my great-grandmother went when she birthed my grandma Molly. The place we have stewarded since time immemorial. It is not just a place to receive from, it’s a reciprocal relationship with the land, waters, fish, and other animals. We are that place; that place is us. Despite Katie John winning in the Supreme Court the right to allow her, our family, and our future families to fish in Batzulnetas, there have been numerous attempts to try and overturn the ruling.¹⁸

I still shake my head at the continued atrocities and injustices that are done to Alaska Native peoples and our ways of life. Will there be a day when the onslaught stops? When will people listen to the Indigenous stewards of the land?

My great auntie’s passion for protecting our ways of life runs through my veins. It pulses with every heartbeat. Katie John never gave up, she remained strong for over 20 years. Her example and the example of my ancestors have provided me inspiration to continue advocating and protecting our rights and our lands.

Growing up in Katie John’s home in Mentasta was a great opportunity for my grandma Molly. She got to be with her cousins, who in our way of life are our sisters and brothers. Molly helped with the chores but so did Katie John’s kids. My grandma was reunited with her sisters when they were adults, but they grew up very differently and rarely returned to the land where they were born.

A road was put in that connected Valdez to Tok and Katie John’s husband, our last Traditional Chief and Mary’s brother, Fred John Sr., moved the village from its traditional location at the mouth of the Slana River to a location across Mentasta Lake, so it could be a part of the road system.¹⁹ This access led to Molly getting a job at the Tok General Store. In 1949, Molly met Donald Galbreath, who drove to Alaska with his best friend on vacation. It was his dream to travel the Alcan, which was a dirt road, and he had to haul all his gas with him to make it. After meeting Molly, Don never left Alaska. They fell in love and began a family. ■

¹ Ahtna Athabaskan Dictionary, s.v. “Headwaters People”,1990.

² Ahtna Athabaskan Dictionary, s.v. “Porcupine”,1990.

³Ahtna Athabaskan Dictionary, s.v. “Roasted Salmon Place”,1990.

⁴Ahtna Athabaskan Dictionary, s.v. “Beaver fur”,1990.

⁵Ahtna Athabaskan Dictionary, s.v. “Thank you Creator, Thank you Black Spruce, Thank you,” 1990.

⁶Ahtna Athabaskan Dictionary, s.v. “Roasted Salmon Place,” 1990.

⁷Wilson Justin, February 29, 2024.

⁸Ahtna Athabaskan Dictionary, s.v. “Roasted Salmon Place,” 1990.

⁹The fishery at Nataełde was first documented on June 2 to 4 of 1885 when the Lieut. Henry Allen party met 57 people waiting for the arrival of salmon. Allen named the village “Batzulnetas” (which is locally called “Batzaneta”) for its chief and shaman, 6’4” tall Bets’ulnii Ta’ ‘father of someone who respects him’. Molly Galbreath, Katie John, James Kari 2001.

¹⁰ Ahtna Athabaskan Dictionary, s.v. “Fish weir,” 1990.

¹¹ Ahtna Athabaskan Dictionary, s.v. “Salmon,” 1990.

¹² Molly Galbreath, March 5, 2025.

¹³ Faye Ewan, March 20, 2025.

¹⁴ The determination of what is “good” may be up to the beholder. There are social constructs at play that influence one’s judgements or thought processes of what is good. I’ve had the privilege of glimpsing the outcomes of the choice to send my great aunties to be adopted out and how it has differed from my grandma’s life. Mainly, their children are not connected to our Mentasta family, except through a distant blood memory.

¹⁵ Molly Galbreath, March 5, 2025.

¹⁶This is one of the stories passed down by my grandma and baffles me, but nonetheless the 233 mile journey was made.

¹⁷Native American Rights Fund, Vol. 6. No. 2: 2001, 2, February 28, 2025. https://narf.org/nill/document...

¹⁸“Federal Judge Allows AFN to Intervene in Case Challenging Katie John”. Alaska Federation of Natives, February 28, 2025. https://nativefederation.org/2...

¹⁹Cynthea Ainsworth, Katie John, Fred John, Mentasta Remembers, 2002, 33.

Bibliography

Ainsworth, Cynthea L., Katie John, and Fred John. Mentasta Remembers. Mentasta Lake, AK: Mentasta Traditional Council, 2002.

Ewan, Faye. Text communication, March 20, 2025

Federal Judge Allows AFN to Intervene in Case Challenging Katie John”. Alaska Federation of Natives, February 28, 2025. https://nativefederation.org/2023/10/federal-judge-allows-afn-to-intervene-in-case-challenging-katie-john/

Galbreath, Molly. In-person communication. March 19, 2025

Galbreath, Molly, Katie John, James Kari. Nataełde Łuk’ae Nilcedi: Putting Up Salmon At Batzulnetas, 2001

Justin, Wilson. Phone conversation. February 29, 2024

Kari, James. Ahtna Athabaskan Dictionary. 1991

Native American Rights Fund. “Katie John Prevails in Subsistence Fight.” 2-6, 2001.https://narf.org/nill/documents/nlr/nlr26-2.pdf

Yatibaey Evans is Ahtna, Athabascan from Mentasta, Alaska and is the proud mother of four incredible boys. Yatibaey is the Creative Producer for the Emmy Award winning PBS series, MOLLY OF DENALI. She is also an adjunct professor for the College of Indigenous Studies at UAF. Previously, she held the position of Alaska Native Education Director for the Fairbanks school district and was awarded Champion for Kids in 2021, by the Alaska's Children's Trust, A Friend of Education from Fairbanks Education Association, and Alaska's Top 40 Under 40 in 2017. Yatibaey is a 2025 FORUM Writing Fellow.