A pair of resolutions registering the Alaska Legislature’s opposition to President Donald Trump’s executive order renaming Denali is set to be heard on Monday.
House Joint Resolutions 3 and 4 by Fairbanks Democratic Reps. Ashley Carrick and Maxine Dibert, respectively, would stake out the Legislature’s opposition to the name change and urge the president to reconsider. They’re set to be heard in the House Rules Committee at 8:30 a.m. Monday, setting up the resolutions to reach the floor quickly.
The resolution by Dibert, who is Alaska Native, outlines how Denali is the traditional Koyukon Athabaskan name for the mountain and has been long supported by Alaska Native and non-Alaska Native residents alike.
“Residents of the state from all backgrounds and political persuasions embrace Denali as the rightful name for the tallest mountain in North America and take pride in the fact that people outside the state also recognize Denali as the mountain’s well-established name,” her resolution says, adding that “changing the name of the mountain from Denali to Mount McKinley would be costly and disrespectful to residents of the state, especially Alaska Natives peoples.”
The resolution also notes that President William McKinley, for whom Mt. McKinley comes from, never visited the mountain and has no special connection to the 49th state.
Resolutions like these don’t carry the force of law and are seen as an expression of where the Alaska Legislature stands on issues, but they can be useful ammunition for Alaska’s Congressional delegation to push for changes. They’ve been used to boost the Willow oil field project or a key change to the Social Security that boosted benefits for some 15,000 Alaskans.
For their part, Alaska’s delegation has been somewhat mixed on the change, reflecting their differing approaches to the second Trump presidency.
“I’m totally against that,” Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski said of the name change, according to Politico. “It is called Denali, which means the great one. So I would just suggest to President Trump, who wants to make everything great, they already have a great name for it.”
U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, who once co-sponsored legislation in 2015 to make Denali the official name of the mountain before former President Obama made the change by executive order, was milder and suggested that the attention is overblown.
“I prefer the name Denali, which was given to that great mountain by the great patriotic Koyukon Athabascan people thousands of years ago,” Sullivan said.
Meanwhile, Republican U.S. Rep. Nick Begich III — who unseated Alaska U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, the first Alaska Native person to serve in Congress — didn’t mind the change.
“What people in the lower 48 call Denali is not of my concern,” Begich said leaving Trump’s inaugural ceremony Monday afternoon. “And what we call a mountain in Alaska is of little concern to me.”
Matt Acuña Buxton is a long-time political reporter who has written for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and The Midnight Sun political blog. He also authors the daily politics newsletter, The Alaska Memo, and can frequently be found live-tweeting public meetings on Bluesky.
