Lawmaker urges restoration of 'Denali' name, asks administration to reconsider Mount McKinley renaming

A lawmaker at a hearing before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs urged federal officials to restore the mountain long known in Alaska as Denali and to reconsider an executive order that renamed it Mount McKinley.

The lawmaker said Alaskans “feel very, very strongly” about the peak and described how people arriving at Ted Stevens International Airport look out the window hoping to see Denali. “Denali translates as the great one,” the lawmaker said, calling that traditional name “fitting” for the mountain.

The speaker noted that “on the first day of his second term, President Trump issued an executive order titled ‘restoring names that honor American greatness,’” and that the order included renaming the peak from its traditional Koyukon Athabaskan name Denali to Mount McKinley. The lawmaker urged the administration to reexamine its position on the bill that concerns the mountain’s official federal name.

The lawmaker also described the issue as long running in Alaska, saying the state government first petitioned the federal government in 1975 to align the federal designation with the state's use of Denali. The speaker framed restoring the traditional name as a matter of respect for “the original stewards of the land” who named the mountain.

Addressing possible concerns about shifting a name linked to President William McKinley, the speaker said restoring Denali does not diminish McKinley’s legacy, listing several memorials and sites that honor him and noting that his contributions remain recognized elsewhere.

The speaker concluded by reiterating that the restoration is a bipartisan concern in Alaska and calling on the administration to reconsider its position; no formal vote or final action on a name change was recorded in the provided transcript.