JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The Alaska Legislature passed a resolution Friday urging President Donald Trump to reverse course and retain the name of North America’s tallest peak as Denali rather than change it to Mount McKinley.
Trump, on his first day in office, signed an executive order calling for the name to revert to Mount McKinley, an identifier inspired by President William McKinley, who was from Ohio and never set foot in Alaska.
He said he planned 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 19-0 vote in the state Senate came just over a week after the House passed the measure 31-8.
The Interior Department late last month announced efforts were underway to implement Trump’s renaming order, even though state leaders haven’t seen the matter as settled. An Interior spokesperson, J. Elizabeth Peace, earlier this week said the agency did not have any further updates.
According to the National Park Service, a prospector in 1896 dubbed the peak Mount McKinley for William McKinley, who was elected president that year.
Although there were challenges to the McKinley name at the time it was announced, maps had already been circulated with the mountain’s name in place. 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 name was formally recognized by the U.S. government until it was changed in 2015 by the Obama administration to Denali as a symbolic gesture to Alaska Natives.
The name change reflected the traditions of Alaska Natives and the preference of many Alaskans, underscored by a push by state leaders decades earlier. The 20,310-foot (6,190-meter) mountain in Denali National Park and Preserve on clear days can be see from hundreds of miles away.
Joe McAneney of Talkeetna is 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 said previously that once tourist season comes around, he will have to answer questions of what he thinks about Trump changing the name. He knows what his answer will be.
“I think unofficially and officially in Alaska, it’ll always be Denali,” McAneney said. “I don’t think the president can change that.”
