For many people on this forum, they each have a place which embodies their first love for the outdoors.
For me there is no place like the Sierra, yet long before I ever learned to love hiking, or physical activity for that matter, I remember learning from my mom that her biological mother had been an Alaskan native.
I remember coming across a photo anthology on Alaska's National parks and another album of Alaska's Inside passage. I remember feeling a deep connection to a distant part of my heritage, and long before I felt at home in the outdoors I felt that a part of me was as inextricably wild as my distant ancestry.
I remember being drawn to Denali, there is something special about that mountain that all who see him feel. One of the largest mountains in the world by mass, and with a prominence of 18,000 feet and no immediate rival, he truly stands as The Great One.
Some years later, years after I had begun my own travels in the mountains of California my mom established contact with her birth mother. She was a native Athabascan descended from a line of tribal leadership that had lived in the Alaskan Interior for an age, carving out their livelihood and cultural identity along the innumerable miles lining the Yukon River.
Two years ago I was fortunate enough to spend a couple weeks with my grandmother, venturing out from her home in Anchorage and spending 5 days in Denali National Park and hearing her talk about her life on the river and her feelings toward European American encroachment on the local cultures easily embodied in the simple re-naming of Denali to McKinley.
Though I can't share fully in a culture which can only be earned in the crucible of shared struggle, I am excited to hear of this baser acknowledgement.
I know many family members who are excited to see this reversion to the true name, that captures the feeling of the Alaskan interior, and makes itself apparently true to all who get to set foot on the Great One.
Last edited by Snacking Bear; 08/31/15 08:32 AM.
