Members of Alaska's congressional delegation said they were happy with the action.
"I’d like to thank the president for working with us to achieve this significant change to show honor, respect, and gratitude to the Athabascan people of Alaska,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said in a video statement recorded on the Ruth Glacier below the mountain.
Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, said in an email that "Denali belongs to Alaska and its citizens. The naming rights already went to ancestors of the Alaska Native people, like those of my wife’s family. For decades, Alaskans and members of our congressional delegation have been fighting for Denali to be recognized by the federal government by its true name. I’m gratified that the president respected this.”
How is restoring the original native name to this mountain being out of control?
Many people in Alaska, including the Native Alaskans, still call this mountain Denali and have for many decades.
Excerpted from the article below...
McKinley no more: America's tallest peak to be renamed Denali
Where is it written that the President of The United States gets to decide what a mountain is called? I really do not care what the mountain is called but I think that deciding what it ought to be called ought not to be the decision of one person.
With the approval of President Barack Obama, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell has signed a “secretarial order” to officially change the name, the White House and Interior Department announced Sunday. The announcement comes roughly 24 hours before Obama touches down in Anchorage for a whirlwind tour of Alaska.
Talk of the name change has swirled in Alaska this year since the National Park Service officially registered no objection in a congressional hearing in Washington, D.C.
The tallest mountain in North America has long been known to Alaskans as Denali, its Koyukon Athabascan name, but its official name was not changed with the creation of Denali National Park and Preserve in 1980, 6 million acres carved out for federal protection under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. The state changed the name of the park’s tallest mountain to Denali at that time, but the federal government did not.
Jewell’s authority stems from a 1947 federal law that allows her to make changes to geographic names through the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, according to the department.
“I think for people like myself that have known the mountain as Denali for years and certainly for Alaskans, it's something that's been a long time coming,” Jewell told Alaska Dispatch News Sunday.
Every year, the same story plays out in Washington, D.C.: Alaska legislators sometimes file bills to change the name from Mount McKinley to Denali, and every year, someone in the Ohio congressional delegation -- the home state of the 25th President William McKinley -- files legislation to block a name change.
It wasn't. It was done because of a consensus of the First Nations people who have lived under the mountain for a whole lot longer than white "settlers" who came for gold and riches.Where is it written that the President of The United States gets to decide what a mountain is called? I really do not care what the mountain is called but I think that deciding what it ought to be called ought not to be the decision of one person.
It takes a special kind of hatred to not call the President by his name....
The mountain was named for McKinley before he became president, by gold prospector William A. Dickey, who had just received word of McKinley’s nomination as a candidate in 1896. McKinley died without ever setting foot in Alaska, assassinated at the start of his second term in office.
Well it's located in a national park, which is controlled by the National Park Service, which under the executive branch. So I would assume that absent an act of Congress, the president has the power to tell the NPS what to call it in some way, and what the NPS calls it is what it will be generally known as. Alaskans already call it Denali and have been trying to get previous admins or congress to change the name.Where is it written that the President of The United States gets to decide what a mountain is called?
Where is it written that the President of The United States gets to decide what a mountain is called? I really do not care what the mountain is called but I think that deciding what it ought to be called ought not to be the decision of one person.