Denali—Koyukon Athabaskan for “The High One”—is the highest mountain in North America. Up here in the Great Land, Denali is remarkable even among the vastness of this big, mostly wild state. It dominates the skyline for hundreds of miles around. In the image leading this story, taken by my wife, Denali is about 150 miles away, and you can see how it still dominates the horizon.
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Lately, Denali has become something of a political football – or, at least, the name has become so. President-elect Donald Trump is talking about changing the mountain’s name back to Mount McKinley, which he can do. But does he have a reason he’s not mentioning? Must Read Alaska’s Suzanne Downing thinks he might be proposing the change to tweak Alaska’s Princess Lisa Murkowski.
Donald Trump is known for the “Art of the Deal,” his bestselling business book and memoir.
Facing almost certain pushback from Sen. Lisa Murkowski on his nominees for cabinet posts and key positions in national security, Trump may have been setting the stage for such an “artful deal” when he said on Sunday that he might change the name of America’s tallest peak to Mount McKinley, the name it was known as since a gold prospector gave it that name in 1896.
Here’s the thing: Everyone up here calls it Denali, and pretty much always has. The Alaska Board of Geographic Names designated it as such in 1975, forty years before President Obama changed the name at the federal level. Also in 1975, the Alaska legislature petitioned the United States Board on Geographic Names to likewise change the name to Denali, but the motion was blocked by an Ohio Congressman, Ralph Regula (R-OH) whose district included President McKinley’s hometown.
Meanwhile, pretty much everyone in the Great Land just went on calling the mountain Denali.
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And, yes, it seems likely, as Suzanne points out, that the President-elect is trolling Princess Lisa.
In Alaska, there’s no particular support for such a name change. Although the change from McKinley to Denali was made by President Barack Obama in an executive order in 2015, Alaskans are not pushing for a return of the previous name.
If Trump is trolling Murkowski, she bit hard.
“There is only one name worthy of North America’s tallest mountain: Denali – the Great One,” she wrote on X in response to a Reuters news article about Trump’s remarks during the America Fest in Phoenix, a convention of young conservatives.
It seems likely that Trump is engaging in a little distraction here. He is, candidly, something of a master at that, and as he is wont to do, likely, Trump is once again pointing and calling “Squirrel!” And Princess Lisa, predictably, took the bait.
See Related: National Park Service Walks Back Denali Flag Ban – Meanwhile, Alaskans Respond With Flags Flying
Now, when it comes to the assigning of names to terrain features, the President can’t just point and say “I dub thee, O mountain, Mt. McKinley.” There is a process; there is a U.S. Board on Geographic Names that oversees these appellations, and they are subject to the Secretary of the Interior. That’s the process that was followed in 2015, and that would be the process to follow now.
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Mind you, here in the Great Land, there’s little or no enthusiasm for the renaming. The tag “Mt. McKinley” was first used in 1896, when a prospector, one William Dickey, gave the mountain that name to honor William McKinley, then a presidential candidate; the name became official at the federal level in 1917, even though President McKinley has no connection to Alaska. But whatever Washington thinks, folks hereabouts have always called the mountain Denali.
And, as I’m fond of pointing out, Alaskans are a stubborn lot. No matter what happens, we’ll keep on calling the big guy Denali. Although it’s true, many of us will watch the President-elects’ trolling of Princess Lisa Murkowski with glee.
This seems appropriate.
