One of Ruthe and Dina’s first acts upon establishing Camp Teddy was to reach out to the local arm of the Alaska Native Sisterhood, of which Ekaterina Moonin Shugak was at that time president. The three strong women bonded instantly, forming a lifetime friendship, which was not lessened by Ekaterina’s death. Ruthe and Dina made serious donations to the fund that supported the fight for the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in 1972. When Dina and Ruthe began agitating for the designation of the Park as an “International Biosphere Reserve,” Ekaterina was first in line to demonstrate her support, which all by itself would have guaranteed its success.

Not coincidentally, Ruthe and Dina had also dandled Ekaterina’s grandbaby, Kate, on their knees practically from the moment of her birth. Dina had instructed a nine-year-old Kate in the art of rappelling down a cliff face, after Ruthe had taught her how to get up it. Thanks to Ruthe and Dina, before Kate was twelve, she was on a first-name basis with every living thing in the Park, Animalia and Plan-tae, by division, class, order, family, genus, and species. Both women had taken her white-water canoeing on the Kanuyaq and saltwater kayaking on Prince William Sound. In this, they had Ekaterina’s tacit, if not overt, approval, because in those days all it took for Kate to be against something was Ekaterina to be for it. The result was a greater understanding of the ecosystems among which she lived, and an appreciation of the whole of nature itself that would last her whole life long.

So, not unnaturally, when it came time to lobby for the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, also known as d-2, Park rats were unsurprised when the Niniltna Native Association, of which the same Ekaterina Moonin Shugak was then president and chief executive officer, lined up behind it. ANILCA created ten new national parks within the state, and added to four already existing parks, one of which had Camp Teddy smack in the middle of it.