North America’s highest climax is a focus of Jeff King’s life.
The four-time winner of the 1,609 kilometer iditarod Trail Dog Race runs his kennel and mushing tourism business only 12 kilometers from the Denali National Park and the entrance of Preserve and the 6.190-meter mountain when he has his dogs on nearby trails moved out.
King and many others who live from Ohio in the shadow of the mountain and never foot in Alaska.
For many who live near Denali, Trump’s proposal was strange.
“I don’t know a single person who likes the idea and we are quite loud,” said King. “Denali respects the indigenous people who have been here and around Denali for tens of thousands of years.”
The mountain was named after McKinley when a prospector left the wilderness in Alaska in 1896, and the first news was that the Republican had been nominated for the President.
The name was quickly challenged, but the cards had already been spread with the name of the mountain.
At that time there was no recognition of the name Denali or the “High One”, which on the mountain in the interior of Alaska from Athabascan’s tribal members who have lived in the region for centuries.
The name McKinley stuck until 2015 when the government of President Barack Obama changed him on the eve of his visit to Alaska as a symbolic gesture for Alaska enthusiasts in Denali to emphasize climate change.
Trump said that he had issued the command, “the name of a great president, William McKinley, to restore Mount McKinley, where it should be and where it belongs. President McKinley made our country very rich through tariffs and talent”.
The area is located exclusively in the United States, and Trump as President has the authority to change geographical federal names within the country.
Trump’s move in Ohio pulled praise.
“I was very excited to see President Trump this executive regulations,” said former US representative Bob Gibbs, R-OHIO, the Associated Press on Thursday by phone. McKinley “was a great president,” said Gibbs. “It was the right thing.”
Alaskans don’t see it that way.
“A Jarrende Note”
Trump injected “A Jarring Note” in Alaska affairs, Steve Haycox, emeritus professor of history at the University of Alaska Anchorage, wrote in the Anchorage Daily News.
“Historical analysis confirms that William McKinley is the wrong public figure for Alaskan, which is reminiscent,” he said.
McKinley served as president from 1897 until he murdered Haycox in 1901, said Haycox.
“Trump’s advance of lifting the name Denali for the colonialist and white elitists McKinley insults all Alaskans, especially for Alaska’s indigenous people, and should be rejected,” said Haycox.
John Wayne Howe, who was unsuccessful for the US house last year and represented the Alaskian independence party, which believes that the Alaskans are becoming an independent nation, he said it was fed up with “people who the names of things change, “.
He is also not in favor of naming people because “the people we change absolutely perfectly over time and only leads it to confusion”.
Howe said he prefers Denali because he knows McKinley’s story and the name is the name that is most preferred by Alaskans.
Last week, two resolutions were introduced in the legislator of Alaska to keep the name Denali.
Republican governor Mike Dunleavy, an ally of Trump, who praised another order from the President who aimed at the development of resources in the state, said what Denali means for Alaskan, Americans and “our native”.
But Sarah Palin, a former Republican governor who is also a Trump supporter, said the name McKinley should never have been removed.
Palins Secret Service Code name was Denali in 2008 when she was the GOP presidential candidate John McCains Running Mate the year in which you had lost against Obama and Joe Biden.
In an interview with Al Arabiya News last week, Palin did not say why the name of the mountain first had to be changed.
“It has always been Mount McKinley,” said Palin, who did not respond to a message from the Associated Press. “Nobody begged for a name change in this summit. Just put it back as it was, more common sense.”
Alaska’s US senators, the Republicans Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, supported the name Denali. The US representative Nick Begich, a Republican in the first appointment, implemented the debate.
“I focus on creating jobs, opportunities in Alaska,” Begich told Politico. “And what we call a mountain in Alaska is of little concern for me.”
The native Heritage Center from Alaska, the nationwide indigenous cultural center in Anchorage, supports the preservation of indigenous place names.
“The restoration and honor recognize the deep, thousand -year connection indigenous peoples with these countries and are a step towards respect and reconciliation,” said the president of the center, Emily Edenshaw, in an explanation.
The quirky Alaska community of Talkeetna, about 225 kilometers south of the park and where a cat was once a mayor, is the starting point for climbers before increasing the summit. The historical community, which is the inspiration for the television series “Northern Exposure” from the 90s for a long time, is also a popular tourist station.
Joe McANeney from Talketna worked as a summer raft guide for two years before moving to Alaska all day in 2012. Now he is a base camp on Kahiltna Glacier with 2,194 meters above sea level.
He knows as soon as the tourist season comes, he has to answer your questions about what he thinks about Trump. He knows what his answer will be.
“It was always Denali and it will always be,” he said.
The executive order can grow the name change, but compliance is another problem.
“The only people who will stick to it are probably the people who would still have called McKinley anyway,” said McANeney.
There is a long-standing Alaska feature to ignore what the rest of the world thinks, and it is usually expressed as much: “We don’t care how you do it outside.” Outside the effect that is always activated, refers to every place where Alaska is not.
“I think unofficially and officially in Alaska, it will always be Denali,” said McANeney. “I don’t think the president can change that.”
For King, the decorated Iditarod Musher and the fan favorite, Trump’s decision had a touch of arrogance.
“I am surprised that he doesn’t want to call it a Trump Mountain,” he said.
