WASHINGTON —
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 American Indian 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.
