Trump Wants to Rename Alaska’s Denali Back to Mount McKinley

Gripped Climbing Magazine

President-elect Donald Trump said he wants to change the name of North America’s tallest mountain, Denali, to its former name, Mount McKinley. If this happens, it would reverse a Barack Obama administration 2015 decision to honour Alaska’s Indigenous People.

At a Turning Point USA event in Phoenix on Sunday, Trump told people that former president William McKinley should have his name restored because he was a “great president” who “deserves it.” He added, “McKinley was a very good, maybe a great president. They took his name off Mount McKinley. That’s what they do to people… President McKinley was the president that was responsible for creating a vast sum of money. That’s one of the reasons that we’re going to bring back the name of Mount McKinley, because I think he deserves it.”

According to CNN, “During his first term, Trump reportedly told Alaska’s two senators in a private meeting he wanted to reverse the decision. The senators asked Trump to keep Denali’s name intact.” The word Denali translates as High One or Great One. The mountain’s name was changed from Denali to McKinley in 1896. The national park around the mountain was named Denali in 1980.

Renaming mountain names to their original Indigenous names is nothing new. Union officer Theodore Winthrop wrote in 1862, “Kulshan, misnamed Mount Baker by the vulgar, is an irregular, massive, mound-shaped peak, worthy to stand a white emblem of perpetual peace between us and our brother Britons. Its name I got from the Lummi tribe at its base, after I had dipped in their pot at a boiled-salmon feast. As to Baker, that name should be forgotten. Mountains should not be insulted by being named after undistinguished bipeds, nor by the prefix of Mt.”

Trump on Denali

The post Trump Wants to Rename Alaska’s Denali Back to Mount McKinley appeared first on Gripped Magazine.

gripped.com