The Great One: The Ancient Roots of “Denali”

Long before maps were drawn by outsiders, the mountain had a name. For the Koyukon Athabaskan people, who have lived in its shadow for millennia, it was, and always has been, Denali. The name, translating to “The High One” or “The Great One”, is not merely a label; it’s a linguistic embodiment of reverence and relationship. It speaks of a worldview where the land is not a resource to be conquered but a living entity to be respected.

The name is woven into the fabric of Koyukon culture—into creation stories, songs, and daily life. It reflects a deep, enduring connection between a people and a place. And the Koyukon were not alone; other indigenous groups in the region had their own names for the peak, such as Dghelay Ka’a (“The Big Mountain”) in the Ahtna language. These names all share a common thread: they are descriptive, rooted in experience, and born from a sense of belonging to the land.

A Political Prospector and a President

The name “Mount McKinley” entered the lexicon in 1896, and its origin story couldn’t be more different. It wasn’t born of reverence, but of political opportunism. A gold prospector from New Hampshire named William A. Dickey was exploring the region and, upon returning to the lower 48, wrote an account for The New York Sun.

In his story, he declared he had named the great peak after William McKinley of Ohio, who had just secured the Republican nomination for president. Why? McKinley was a prominent champion of the gold standard, a monetary policy Dickey fiercely supported. The naming was, in part, a political jab at his prospecting opponents who advocated for a silver standard. It was a whim, a tribute to a politician from Ohio who had never seen Alaska, let alone the mountain that would bear his name.

Despite this flimsy connection, the name stuck. When Congress established “Mount McKinley National Park” in 1917, the name was codified into federal law, officially overwriting millennia of indigenous heritage with a fleeting political statement.

A Century of Contention: The Fight Begins

The imposition of “McKinley” was not met with universal acceptance. As early as 1913, Hudson Stuck, the first person to lead a successful ascent to the summit, condemned the name in his book about the expedition. He wrote:

“For more than a hundred years, the natives have had a name for this great mountain… No-one who has spent any time in the interior of Alaska and has seen this great peak…can fail to feel the appropriateness of the native name and the lamentable inappropriateness of the new one.”

The formal fight, however, began in earnest in 1975. The Alaska Legislature officially requested that the U.S. Board on Geographic Names change the mountain’s name to Denali. The state of Alaska began using “Denali” on all its official maps and documents. But the request stalled at the federal level, hitting a powerful and persistent roadblock: the congressional delegation from Ohio.

For four decades, led primarily by Representative Ralph Regula, Ohio politicians used legislative maneuvering to prevent the federal government from even considering the name change. They argued that renaming the mountain would be an insult to the memory of the 25th U.S. President. Each time a bill was introduced to restore the name Denali, the Ohio delegation would introduce its own legislation to cement the name McKinley, creating a stalemate that lasted for a generation.

Language as a Battlefield: What’s in a Name?

The Denali-McKinley debate is a classic case study in toponymy—the study of place names—and the politics of naming. Place names are never neutral. They are cultural artifacts, dense with meaning, history, and power dynamics. They tell us who had the power to name, whose history was valued, and whose was erased.

This was a conflict between two fundamentally different ways of naming:

• Denali: An endogenous name, meaning it comes from within the culture that lives with the place. It is descriptive, timeless, and represents a relationship with the land.
• McKinley: An exogenous name, imposed from the outside. It is commemorative, political, and represents ownership or authority over the land.

Renaming a place is an act of power. For colonizers, overwriting indigenous names has historically been a key tool in claiming territory, not just physically, but culturally and psychologically. By stripping away a name like Denali, you attempt to sever the connection between the people and their ancestral homeland. The fight to restore it, therefore, was not just about a mountain. It was an act of linguistic decolonization—a fight to have indigenous history recognized and respected.

A Presidential Decree: The Restoration of Denali

After 40 years of political deadlock, the resolution came swiftly. In August 2015, on the eve of a presidential trip to Alaska, the Obama administration announced it was taking executive action. Citing a 1947 law that gives the Secretary of the Interior the authority to act when the Board on Geographic Names fails to do so in a “reasonable time”, Secretary Sally Jewell issued an order officially restoring the name Denali.

The decision was celebrated across Alaska and by indigenous communities nationwide. In her official order, Secretary Jewell stated, “The name Denali has been in use for many years and is widely supported by the people of Alaska.” She acknowledged that the mountain was a site of “cultural importance to many Alaska Natives” and that the name “Denali” is “rooted in the Athabaskan language of the Koyukon people.”

The long war was over. The name that had graced the mountain for thousands of years was finally back on federal maps. Today, the peak is known worldwide as Denali. Its story serves as a powerful reminder that names are more than just words. They are anchors to our identity, our history, and our relationship with the world around us. And sometimes, restoring a name can be as monumental as the mountain itself.