Denali, which translates to “the High One” in the Koyukon language, has been a significant name for Alaska Native peoples for millennia. In 2015, the Obama administration officially acknowledged Denali after years of discussion and contention. However, Alaska Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, along with various Native organizations, have voiced their opposition to this change, insisting that the mountain’s original indigenous name should be preserved.
Trump orders renaming of Alaska’s highest peak from Denali back to Mount McKinley
by Corinne Smith, SC Daily Gazette
January 21, 2025
President Donald Trump announced the name of Alaska’s highest peak — and North America’s tallest at over 20,000 feet — Denali, would be changed back to Mount McKinley.
Trump was sworn in as the 47th president on Monday, and made the announcement in his inaugural address, also promising to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico. He followed through with an executive order hours later.
“A short time from now, we are going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America,” Trump said. “And we will restore the name of a great president, William McKinley, to Mount McKinley, where it should be and where it belongs.”
William McKinley was the 25th president, serving from 1897 until his assassination in 1901. Trump has praised his tariff policies, known as the McKinley tariffs, which raised taxes on some imported goods.
“President McKinley made our country very rich through tariffs and through talent — he was a natural businessman — and gave Teddy Roosevelt the money for many of the great things he did, including the Panama Canal, which has foolishly been given to the country of Panama,” he said.
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski has opposed the name change.
“I strongly disagree with the President’s decision on Denali,” Murkowski said in a statement on Monday. “Our nation’s tallest mountain, which has been called Denali for thousands of years, must continue to be known by the rightful name bestowed by Alaska Koyukon Athabascans, who have stewarded the land since time immemorial.”
Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan has also publicly opposed the change, but did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday.
In December, Sen. Sullivan repeated his support for the name Denali, via spokesperson Amanda Coyne, who said: “Senator Sullivan, like many Alaskans prefers the name that the very tough, very strong, very patriotic Athabascan people gave the mountain thousands of years ago – Denali.”
In the language of Interior Alaska’s Koyukon people, Denali means “the High One.”
The naming of the mountain prompted debate and national controversy for decades.
The name change effort from Mount McKinley to Denali began in 1975, when the Alaska Legislature asked the federal government to change the name. It was formally recognized by the Obama administration in 2015. It was seen as a victory in a larger movement to restore traditional indigenous place names, and acknowledge the history and heritage of Alaska Native peoples.
McKinley never visited Alaska, nor had any significant historical ties to the mountain or the state, according to the resolution renaming it. A local prospector named the mountain after the then-presidential nominee McKinley in 1896.
Hours after taking office, Trump signed an executive order reverting the name back to Mount McKinley. The order directed the secretary of the Interior to make the change within 30 days. Doug Burgum, the Republican governor of North Dakota, is expected to be confirmed to that role.
The order specifies that the 6-million-acre Denali National Park and Preserve will retain its name. It was renamed in 1980, 35 years before the mountain’s name change.
Requests for comment to the Alaska Federation of Natives and the Tanana Chiefs Conference were not immediately returned on Monday.
SC Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. SC Daily Gazette maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seanna Adcox for questions: info@scdailygazette.com.
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