Mount McKinley Will Again Be Called Denali
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS

President Obama announced on Sunday that Mount McKinley was being renamed Denali, using his executive power to restore an Alaska Native name with deep cultural significance to the tallest mountain in North America.

The move came on the eve of Mr. Obama’s trip to Alaska, where he will spend three days promoting aggressive action to combat climate change, and is part of a series of steps he will make there meant to address the concerns of Alaska Native tribes.

It is the latest bid by the president to fulfill his 2008 campaign promise to improve relations between the federal government and the nation’s Native American tribes, an important political constituency that has a long history of grievances against the government.

Denali’s name has long been seen as one such slight, regarded as an example of cultural imperialism in which a Native American name with historical roots was replaced by an American one having little to do with the place.

The central Alaska mountain has officially been called Mount McKinley for almost a century. In announcing that Sally Jewell, the secretary of the interior, had used her power to rename it, Mr. Obama was paying tribute to the state’s Native population, which has referred to the site for generations as Denali, meaning “the high one” or “the great one.”

The peak, at more than 20,000 feet, plays a central role in the creation story of the Koyukon Athabascans, a group that has lived in Alaska for thousands of years.

Mr. Obama, freed from the political constraints of an impending election in the latter half of his second term, was also moving to put to rest a yearslong fight over the name of the mountain that has pit Alaska against electorally powerful Ohio, the birthplace of President William McKinley, for whom it was christened in 1896.

The government formally recognized the name in 1917, and efforts to reverse the move began in Alaska in 1975. In an awkward compromise struck in 1980, the national park surrounding it was named Denali National Park and Preserve, but the mountain continued to be called Mount McKinley.

Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, introduced legislation in January to rename the peak, but Ohio lawmakers sought to block the move. In June, an Interior Department official said in testimony before Congress that the administration had “no objection” to Ms. Murkowski’s proposed change.

In a video released on Sunday, Ms. Murkowski cheered Mr. Obama’s decision.

“For generations, Alaskans have known this majestic mountain as ‘the great one,’” she said in the video, appearing in front of the snow-topped mountain, its peak reaching above the clouds. “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.”

The mountain came to be known as Mount McKinley after a gold prospector who had just emerged from exploring the Alaska Range heard that Mr. McKinley had won the Republican presidential nomination, and declared that the tallest peak should be named in his honor as a show of support.

Mr. McKinley was assassinated in 1901, six months into his second term, and never visited Alaska. Mr. Obama’s trip there starting on Monday will be his first major visit to the state, and he will become the first sitting American president to visit the Alaskan Arctic.

The White House also announced on Sunday that Mr. Obama was expanding government support for programs to allow Alaska Natives to be more involved in developing their own natural resources, including an initiative to include them in the management of Chinook salmon fisheries, a youth exchange council focusing on promoting “an Arctic way of life,” and a program allowing them to serve as advisers to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.

Mr. Obama has stepped up his engagement with Native Americans since June last year, when he visited Cannon Ball, N.D., in the ancestral lands of Chief Sitting Bull and took part in a powwow to honor American Indians who have served in America’s foreign wars. That was the first visit by a sitting president in 15 years to land under tribal jurisdiction.

“There’s no denying that for some Americans, the deck’s been stacked against them, sometimes for generations, and that’s been true of many Native Americans,” Mr. Obama said at the time. “But if we’re working together, we can make things better.”

美最高峰改名 回歸「原」味

美國總統歐巴馬卅一日在阿拉斯加州首府安克拉治市宣布，將把北美的最高峰麥金利山（Mount McKinley）正式改名叫作「迪納利山」（Mount Denali）， 恢復阿拉斯加原住民對麥金利山的傳統稱呼，除了凸顯當地原住民的文化意涵，也為四十年來的正名紛爭畫下了句點。

白宮表示，此次更名是為了改善與阿拉斯加原住民的關係。「迪納利山」為阿薩巴斯卡印地安人開創故事的核心，對阿拉斯加原住民來說具有深厚的文化意義。

阿拉斯加原住民聯盟主席齊卡受訪時表示，新政策對阿拉斯加原住民有具體及心理上的影響。齊卡認為，這具有象徵意義，而目前著眼於把所有地圖及其中敘述改為傳統名字。改名來得正是時候，也是正確的。

這一座位於阿拉斯加山脈中段的山峰，海拔高度將近六千兩百公尺，一八九六年因為一位淘金者聽到支持金本位的麥金利（William Mckinley）被共和黨提名為總統候選人，他為了表示力挺，於是就把阿拉斯加最高峰命名為「麥金利山」，但阿拉斯加原住民一直稱呼此山「迪納利」，意為「偉大的」。麥金利後來成為美國的第廿五位總統，在第二任時遇刺身亡，一生從未去過阿拉斯加州 。

然而，山峰名稱的爭議自那時起便一直延宕未決。阿拉斯加州政府從一九七五年以來多次嘗試正名未果。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/31/us/mount-mckinley-will-be-renamed-denali.html

2015-09-01．聯合報．A13．國際．編譯陳韋廷