Catharine's work extended past her academic research, as she also became an advocate for their rights on issues such as the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline debate in 1976.
[1] Catharine was born in York, Pennsylvania, lived throughout the United States and Yukon Territory throughout the course of her life, and died in Peterborough, New Hampshire.
These initial interviews helped to encourage the precise documentation of particular transcripts of narrative accounts which allowed her to begin to identify the nature of differences among these traditional stories.
Her research relied on time-intensive work in the North as used oral interviews and many visits to the communities to gain both a proper relationship with her informants, such as Angela Sidney, as well as to act ethically as a participant observer.
[2] Catharine collaborated with Frederica de Laguna in Angoon in 1950 as well as traveling North with her to conduct ethnological investigations at Yakutat in 1952, along with Francis A Riddell.
[5] Catharine's early contribution to documenting oral tradition among the Aboriginal people of the Yukon has opened the region up to study from others.
To illustrate important elements of the stories from her research, she would bring in tools, clothes, and weapons from both the Tlingit and Athapaskan peoples for her students.