Why Denali Will Never Be McKinley

The mountain was entwined with the pursuit that embossed its indigenous name on American minds long before it was renamed for a white man.

One of the Denali Damsels summiting Denali in 1970. Photo by Margaret Young.

From 1917 to 2015, North America’s tallest mountain was officially named Mount McKinley. But even over that century, Alaskans, mountain climbers, and many others still called it by the name it had held for millennia. In every language of the Athabaskan people living near the mou…