Despite Donald Trump’s executive order that the name of North America’s tallest peak – Denali – revert to Mount McKinley, many Alaskans say the US president can change the name but can’t make them call it that.
Prominent Alaskan Jeff King, a four-time winner of the 1,000-mile (1,609-km) Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, operates his kennel and mushing tourism business just 13 km from Denali National Park and Preserve’s entrance, and the 6,190-m. mountain looms large as he trains his dogs on nearby trails.
King and many others who live in the mountain’s shadow say most Alaskans will never stop calling the peak Denali, its Alaska Native name, instead of McKinley – an identifier inspired by President William McKinley, who was from Ohio and never set foot in Alaska.
For many who live near Denali, Trump’s suggestion is unwelcome.
“I don’t know a single person that likes the idea, and we’re pretty vocal about it,” he added. “Denali respects the Indigenous people that have been here and around Denali for tens of thousands of years.”
For King, Trump’s decision has a whiff of arrogance. “I’m surprised he doesn’t want to name it Trump Mountain,” he said.
The mountain was named after McKinley – remembered as an imperial colonialist president, who was assassinated while in office 1901 – when a prospector walked out of the Alaska wilderness in 1896, and the first news he heard was that the Republican had been nominated for president.
The name was quickly challenged, but maps had already been circulated with the mountain’s name in place at it was officially adopted by US Congress in 1917.
At the time, there was no recognition of the name Denali, or “the high one,” bestowed on the mountain in interior Alaska by Athabascan tribal members, who have lived in the region for centuries.
The McKinley name stuck until 2015, when President Barack Obama’s administration changed it to Denali as a symbolic gesture to Alaska Natives on the eve of his Alaska visit to highlight climate change.
Trump said he issued the order to “restore the name of a great president, William McKinley, to Mount McKinley, where it should be and where it belongs. President McKinley made our country very rich through tariffs and through talent.”
The area lies solely in the United States, and Trump, as president, has the authority to change federal geographical names within the country.
Steve Haycox, professor emeritus of history at the University of Alaska Anchorage, says Trump injected “a jarring note” into Alaska affairs.
Writing in the Anchorage Daily News, he said, “Historical analysis confirms that William McKinley is the wrong public figure for Alaskans to commemorate.”
McKinley served as president from 1897 until his death in 1901, a tenure during which he oversaw the expansion of the American empire with the occupation of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines and Hawaii, pushed by business interests and Christian missionaries wanting to convert Indigenous peoples, Haycox said.
“Trump’s push to rescind the name Denali for the colonialist and white elitist McKinley is insulting to all Alaskans, especially to Alaska’s Native people, and should be soundly rejected,” Haycox said.
Last week, two resolutions were introduced in the Alaska Legislature to keep the name Denali.
The Alaska Native Heritage Center, the statewide Indigenous cultural centre in Anchorage, supports preserving Indigenous place names.
“Restoring and honouring them acknowledges the deep, millennia-old connection Indigenous peoples maintain with these lands and is a step toward respect and reconciliation,” the centre’s president, Emily Edenshaw, said in a statement.
Tourism
The quirky Alaska community of Talkeetna, about 225.3 km south of the park and where a cat was once mayor, is the jumping off point for climbers before making the ascent of the peak. The historic community long rumoured to be the inspiration for the 1990s television series “Northern Exposure” is also a popular tourist stop.
Joe McAneney of Talkeetna worked as a summer raft-guide for two years before moving to Alaska full time in 2012. He’s now a pilot for an air taxi company, ferrying climbers and tourists to the mountain in a small airplane outfitted with skis to land at base camp, located on Kahiltna Glacier at 7,200 feet (2,194.6 meters) above sea level.
He knows once tourist season comes around, he will have to answer their questions of what he thinks about Trump changing the name. He knows what his answer will be.
“It’s always been Denali, and it always will be,” he said. “The only people that are going to adhere to that are probably the people that would have been still calling it McKinley anyway.”
There is a long-standing Alaska trait of ignoring what the rest of the world thinks, and it’s usually expressed like this: “We don’t care how they do it Outside.” Outside, which is always capitalized, refers to every place that is not Alaska.
“I think unofficially and officially in Alaska, it’ll always be Denali,” McAneney said. “I don’t think the president can change that.”
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