Alaskans have an unconventional way of spelling Mt. McKinley, North America’s tallest peak that rests in the south of the Last Frontier.
D-e-n-a-l-i.
The official name of the 20,237-foot mountain inside Denali National Park is Mt. McKinley, according to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names. But to Alaskans, (ambitious) mountain-climbers and the 11 indigenous tribes that make up the Athabascan people, it’s Denali. Period.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski will attempt to push legislation through the Energy and Natural Resources Committee she heads Wednesday to change the mountain’s name to Mt. Denali.
“I think you look to what the will of the people of the home state is and have that be reflected,” the Alaska Republican told the Washington Examiner.
But Murkowski will run into familiar opposition: Ohio.
“The mountain is named after one of our great presidents, President [William] McKinley,” Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, told the Examiner. “They’ve got the name of the area.”
Denali boosters said its original name was scrubbed when a gold prospector in the state dubbed it Mt. McKinley during Republican William McKinley’s first successful presidential campaign in 1896. McKinley had supported fixing the monetary system to gold, while his opponent, Democrat William Jennings Bryan, backed the silver standard.
“It’s a fundamental disrespect to our people,” Evon Peter, a Gwich’in and Koyukon Athabascan who is the vice chancellor for rural, community and native education at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. “It’s a cultural disrespect as well as a ridiculous way for a mountain to acquire a name of somebody.”
The name-change legislation will test the lengths to which Murkowski is willing to use her position as chairwoman to advance small but parochial policies. Senate colleagues and lobbyists — even those who disagree with her on issues — contend she legislates with the interests of her home state in mind at all times, so she will no doubt try to use the position of power to get the bill approved.
Denali, as the Athabascan people call it, is part of its tribes’ creation story. The name means “the high one” or “the great one” to the Koyukon Athabascan people who had called it that for centuries. They contend changing the mountain officially to Denali is a matter of respecting civil and indigenous rights.
Ohioans, though, have blocked the name change for decades. It was a cause celebre of longtime GOP Rep. Ralph Regula, whose district included Canton, where McKinley, a native Ohioan, made his name following the Civil War and before he won the presidency.
“The city of Canton is a major part of our district and they consider President McKinley a very integral part of their community,” said Dallas Gerber, a spokesman for Republican Rep. Bob Gibbs, the latest Ohioan to sponsor the resolution since Regula retired in 2009. “They consider McKinley one of their greatest sons.”
Blocking the name change hasn’t been too difficult. The Board of Geographic Names contends it can’t honor a change if one chamber of Congress adopts a resolution maintaining the current name, which the House has done consistently since 1981.
Murkowski, though, isn’t convinced that merely introducing a resolution stating Mt. McKinley should remain so prevents the Board of Geographic Names from proceeding with a change. She mused that legislation explicitly changing the name could trump that. She also hinted a measure to change the Board of Geographic Names’ policy could be in the offing.
“It’s not even a law, I checked into that. It’s just kind of like somebody’s protocol is what I’m told. I think there should be some kind of work-around,” Murkowski said. “If you have an agency that says, ‘We can’t do anything because there is something else introduced out there’ — we’re going to take a look at that.”
Murkowski said she’s looking for “creative vehicles” to move the legislation if it gets out of committee. Big, must-pass bills such as the National Defense Authorization Act, which is on the Senate floor this week, present such an opportunity.
While Murkowski is in search of such opportunities and feels strongly about the bill, she is more likely to spend her political capital on more pressing matters.
Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, an Ohio native whose wife and daughters are Athabascan, called the Mt. McKinley-Denali fight a “respect issue.”
“That mountain was named thousands of years ago. So with all due respect for the people of Ohio, that’s the rightful name,” Sullivan, who is co-sponsoring Murkowski’s bill, told the Examiner. “I think in due time, we’ll get there.”
Lawmakers thought they solved the name spat when President Jimmy Carter created the Denali National Monument in 1978 and two years later combined it with nearby land to create the Denali National Park and Preserve.
But that hasn’t satisfied Alaskans or the Athabascan people.
“Denali is a sacred site, a sacred place for our peoples,” Peter said. “And it’s become a symbol too for the shift of disrespect to indigenous people to honoring that we’ve been here a long time and have had names for these places.”
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misidentified the year in which House began adopting resolutions to keep the mountain’s current name. The Washington Examiner regrets the error.
