"Tallest Peak in North America Now Called Mount Denali" Topic

President Obama announced on Sunday that Mount McKinley was being renamed Denali, using his executive power to restore an Alaska Native name with deep cultural significance to the tallest mountain in North America.

The move came on the eve of Mr. Obama's trip to Alaska, where he will spend three days promoting aggressive action to combat climate change, and is part of a series of steps he will make there meant to address the concerns of Alaska Native tribes.

It is the latest bid by the president to fulfill his 2008 campaign promise to improve relations between the federal government and the nation's Native American tribes, an important political constituency that has a long history of grievances against the government.

Denali's name has long been seen as one such slight, regarded as an example of cultural imperialism in which a Native American name with historical roots was replaced by an American one having little to do with the place.

The central Alaska mountain has officially been called Mount McKinley for almost a century. In announcing that Sally Jewell, the secretary of the interior, had used her power to rename it, Mr. Obama was paying tribute to the state's Native population, which has referred to the site for generations as Denali, meaning "the high one" or "the great one."[…] link

The geography nerd in me found this interesting. I guess those wargaming Red Dawn will have to re-label their Alaska maps

Cheers,
Martin

Anyone want to guess how long before some call it
Mount Denial ?

…an important political constituency…

2% of the US population, actually

Do ALL Native Americans in Alaska call it Denali, or just one of many tribes?

Denali is in the Koyukuk language that a few hundred of a couple thousand ethnic Koyukuk speak. But it is also the same or similar in a number of related languages. It is the most widespread indigenous name for the mountain, especially considering once you get a hundred miles or so from the mountain, you don't have any name for it.

Supposedly, Denali translates to "The High One"

I'll leave it at that…

I'm going to call it Mount Bob from now on. Just because I can.

The citizens of Alaska are happy. They asked to change it in the 1980's and have referred to the mountain as Denali in state papers since the 1980's.

Seems the only people complaining are the politicians from Ohio.

Terry

Poor Mckinley. Shot in life, his mountain renamed in death.

I'm still going to call it "Mount Bill". Because "Bill" is God's name on this planet, or at least this continent. And that way I compromise. "Bill" McKinley would approve….

Do ALL Native Americans in Alaska call it Denali, or just one of many tribes?

I'm pretty sure the answer to that question is out there. Why not Google it?

"The High One" strikes me as probably having been merely a descriptive term rather than a name, like "the big hill," "the old tree," "the little river," etc… Do all cultures, particularly primitive, pre-literate tribal ones, actually name geographic features? More developed cultures do, yes, but all? Indeed, I suspect this is a case of Western assumption that mountains must have names, when in fact it's entirely likely it never had a "name" at all before European cultural descendants showed up. It was just "the high one (of those things we don't climb because it's cold enough down here as it is and there isn't anything to eat up there, so who cares)."

Conversation, poorly understood.
Western explorer type: "What do you call that?"
Native: "Tree."
WET: "No, that!"
N: "Snow."
WET: "NO, no! What the snow is on! The mountain!"
N: "Mountain."
WET: "Yes, yes, they're all mountains, but what about that one?"
N: "The high one?" (Denali)
WET: "Denali."
N (glad to encourage strange WET who can so easily kill caribou with loud stick): "The high one."
WET: "Oh, that will never do. We'll name it after a president."
N (shrugs; has no idea what strange WET is talking about): "Good. Good. Can you shoot me another caribou? I want to be rich!"

Oh, and for the record, a U.S. President has no power to name a mountain unless everybody else agrees to go along with the name. It's silly. The name of a thing is what the people who talk about the thing call the thing, not what some pinhead politicians decide it should be called so they can kiss up to whatever interest group they're kissing up to this week.
Frankly, I don't see what's wrong with calling it Mt. McKinley AND Denali. Or heck, call it Fred. It's just a big mountain, whatever one calls it.

link

The government formally recognized the name in 1917, and efforts to reverse the move began in Alaska in 1975. In an awkward compromise struck in 1980, the national park surrounding it was named Denali National Park and Preserve, but the mountain continued to be called Mount McKinley.

Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, introduced legislation in January to rename the peak, but Ohio lawmakers sought to block the move. In June, an Interior Department official said in testimony before Congress that the administration had "no objection" to Ms. Murkowski's proposed change.

Unless you're a fat ass from New Jersey, what gives those Ohioan orangutans the right to strong-arm what goes on in Alaska? Nothing to do with the extinction of wild life or damage to the surrounding environment, so respect States' Rights.

I don't have a dog in this fight. Let the Alaskans and the Ohioans duke it out.

It does remind me of a similar controversy in Central Florida many years ago. After President Kennedy was assassinated, President Johnson renamed all of Cape Canaveral to Cape Kennedy where the NASA space center is located. Many Central Floridians, especially long-time residents of the Cape, wanted the historic Cape Canaveral name restored. I recall many Massachusetts political leaders opposed restoring the historic name. Years later, the name Cape Canaveral was restored, but the NASA space center kept the name John F. Kennedy Space Center.

It seems like some similar compromise could be done in the present situation. Name the mountain Denali and name the park after President McKinley. But no one is interested in peaceful compromises these days.

I live in Ohio and you can call it mount for all I care.

And now they're saying it's 10 feet shorter than they originally measured.

I'm still going to call it "Mount Bill".

Billy was a mountain. Ethel was a tree growing off of his shoulder.

Tallest Peak in North America Now Called Mount Denali

it was ALWAYS called Denali. Just for 100 years the US Government got it wrong.

Is it "Mount Denali" or just "Denali"?

I've been there several times and camped at the base. The locals have called it Denali for years.