ANCHORAGE, Alaska (news agencies) — North America’s tallest peak is a focal point of Jeff King’s life.
The four-time winner of the 1,000-mile (1,609-kilometer) Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race operates his kennel and mushing tourism business just 8 miles (12.87 kilometers) from Denali National Park and Preserve’s entrance, and the 20,310-foot (6,190-meter) 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, despite President Donald Trump’s executive order that the name revert to Mount 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 was peculiar.
“I don’t know a single person that likes the idea, and we’re pretty vocal about it,” King said. “Denali respects the Indigenous people that have been here and around Denali for tens of thousands of years.”
The mountain was named after McKinley 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 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.
The area lies solely in the United States, and Trump, as president, has the authority to change federal geographical names within the country.
In Ohio, Trump’s move drew praise.
“I was really excited to see President Trump do that executive order,” former U.S. Rep. Bob Gibbs, R-Ohio, told media by telephone Thursday. McKinley “was a great president,” Gibbs said. “It was the appropriate thing to do.”
That’s not how Alaskans see it.
Trump injected “a jarring note” into Alaska affairs, Steve Haycox, professor emeritus of history at the University of Alaska Anchorage, wrote in the Anchorage Daily News.
“Historical analysis confirms that William McKinley is the wrong public figure for Alaskans to commemorate,” he said.
McKinley served as president from 1897 until he was assassinated in 1901. He was an imperial colonialist who 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.
John Wayne Howe, who unsuccessfully ran for U.S. House last year representing the Alaskan Independence Party, which holds that Alaskans should be allowed to vote on becoming an independent nation, said he is tired of “people changing the names of stuff, period.”
He’ also is not in favor of naming anything after people because “the persons that we consider absolutely perfect change over time, and it just leads to confusion.”
Howe said he prefers Denali because he knows McKinley’s history and it’s the name most preferred by Alaskans.
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