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Just realized tourists keep calling Denali 'Mount McKinley' like it never changed
I was fishing near Talkeetna last weekend and overheard a guide telling his group the mountain is 20,320 feet high, but he kept calling it McKinley. That name got officially changed back in 2015, nearly 10 years ago now. I grew up here in Fairbanks and my dad always called it Denali, even when the maps said otherwise. It matters because it's about respecting the local Athabascan name, not some old political thing from the 1890s. How do you handle telling visitors the right name without sounding like a jerk?
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nathan5455mo ago
Just tell them "it's called Denali now unless you want the mountain to correct you with a rockslide." Nothing wins an argument like a little natural disaster humor.
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claire_hayes355mo ago
The real kicker is that Denali was always called that by the local Koyukon people long before any of us showed up, so technically we're just catching up. What's the best way to get people to respect indigenous names?
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sage_morgan753mo ago
Honestly, I get the respect angle but I think there's a middle ground here. Correcting someone with humor about rockslides feels more condescending than helpful, and for a lot of older folks that name has been in their head for 50 years.
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