Kari Barnard is a third generation Norwegian-Alaskan, and American, as well as the granddaughter of a Texas sharecropper.  Her parents homesteaded 160 acres in the Copper River Valley in the early 1960’s.  Kari was in first grade when her family moved to Anchorage where she spent the next 12 years going through the Anchorage school system.  Summers were spent at the homestead running over the countryside with friends and relatives, and going to church and Sunday school in Gulkana Village located below the homestead on the Gulkana River.

Kari dropped out of college a semester short of a degree in opera singing, went through a few miscellaneous jobs, and opened a BBQ restaurant with her father.  After three years of hundred-hour workweeks she retired and moved back to the Copper River Valley.  After several more survival jobs, including lodge cook, motel housekeeper, and home health aide, she has finally found happiness and fulfillment as a para-educator for the Copper River School District.  She has worked in the communities of Copper Center, Gulkana, Gakona, and Chistochina before transferring into the Language and Cultural Liaison position at Glennallen Junior/Senior High School.