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Alaska politicians question Trump's proposal to rename Denali

Iris Samuels, Anchorage Daily News on

Published in News & Features

JUNEAU, Alaska — Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy said Wednesday that he would seek out a conversation with President Donald Trump about his decision to rename Denali, the tallest mountain in the U.S.

Trump ordered on Monday to change the name of the peak to Mount McKinley.

The mountain was named after President William McKinley, an Ohioan who had never visited Alaska, until former President Barack Obama formally renamed it Denali in 2015, after decades of requests for the name change from Alaska leaders.

Alaska’s two Republican senators have both said they would prefer the mountain’s name to remain Denali. The state’s lone U.S. representative, also a Republican, has not taken a position on the topic.

Dunleavy, who largely celebrated executive actions taken by Trump during his first day in office, said during a press conference on Wednesday that he would refrain from saying whether he supported the name change until after he spoke about it directly with the president.

“I look forward to sitting down with him and having a conversation to truly understand the motivation,” said Dunleavy, adding that he planned to pursue a meeting with Trump while on a trip to Washington, D.C. next month.

While there, Dunleavy said he wanted to have a conversation with Trump about “what the mountain means to Alaskans and to Americans, what the mountain means in terms of its name Denali to our Native folks.”

Dunleavy’s wife and their three daughters are Alaska Native of Inupiaq heritage.

Two Alaska House members introduced resolutions on Wednesday urging Trump to maintain Denali as the mountain’s official name.

Rep. Maxine Dibert, a Fairbanks Democrat who is Koyukon Athabascan, introduced one of the resolutions. She said Denali — a Koyukon Athabascan word meaning “high” or “tall” — should be kept because it is “deeply ingrained in the state’s culture and identity.”

 

The two resolutions introduced in the House on Wednesday have yet to be scheduled to a vote. If adopted, they would urge the congressional delegation to advocate for the retention for the name Denali.

Alaska’s U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said she “strongly disagreed” with the renaming order shortly after it was issued 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’s Koyukon Athabascans, who have stewarded the land since time immemorial,” Murkowski wrote in a social media post.

U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, who is more closely aligned with Trump, was silent about the name change the day the order was issued, but said in a statement on Wednesday that he preferred to keep the name that “the patriotic, strong Athabascan people gave that great mountain thousands of years ago — Denali.”

“We’ll continue the discussions with the Trump administration on that,” said Sullivan, whose wife and daughters are Athabascan.

Alaska's U.S. Rep. Nick Begich did not immediately respond to questions about the order from the Daily News, and has so far not taken a public position on the name.

Politico reported that as Begich left the inaugural ceremony on Monday, he told a a reporter that “what people in the Lower 48 call Denali is not of my concern.”

Trump’s order instructed the Department of Interior to finalize the name change within 30 days, meaning the new name would go into effect on Feb. 20 unless the order is revoked or blocked.

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©2025 Anchorage Daily News. Visit at adn.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

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