Former Suicide Peaks are now officially named Yuyanq’ Ch’ex, or “Heaven’s Breath”

Though I backed William Pagaran’s two-year mission to rename Chugach State Park’s North and South Suicide Peaks, I considered his effort something of a Quixotic quest, with little to no chance for success given the obstacles he had to surmount. But it turns out that his persistence—and heart-felt motivation—has been rewarded.

This month the U.S. Board on Geographic Names—which has the last word in geographic naming within our country—unanimously voted to replace the “Suicides” with North and South Yuyanq’ Ch’ex (pronounced You-yonk chech), a Dena’ina Athabascan name that translates into English as “Breath from Above” or “Heaven’s Breath.”

Given all he’d been through, Pagaran was understandably ecstatic. “I about jumped out of my skin when I first heard that it was passed,” he told a reporter. “I shouted. I cried. I went on a nice hike.”

I especially love that last part. It’s something I might do in the same circumstances.

As I recounted in my April City Wilds column, “Supporting an effort to rename the Suicide Peaks,” Pagaran—who is part Tlingit and lives in Palmer—began his crusade in 2020, part of his larger effort (through a nonprofit group, “Carry the Cure”) to curtail suicides in Alaska, particularly within our state’s indigenous communities, where suicide’s toll is especially heavy.

His first step was to find a more life-affirming and healing name, one with indigenous roots. To do that, Pagaran consulted with members of the Native group that has the closest ties to the local landscape, the Dena’ina Athabascan tribe.

Pagaran and others did an exhaustive search to find out what, if any, Dena’ina name had ever been given to the pair of mountains. None could be found, so their effort shifted, to create a new—and appropriate—name for the peaks. In the end, an elder named Helen Dick, who speaks the Dena’ina language fluently, suggested the name Yuyanq’ Ch’ex.

Next began the long process of getting the name changed.

In 2021, Pagaran’s initial proposal to change the Suicides’ names to North and South Yuyanq’ Ch’ex was denied by the Alaska Historical Commission, primarily because he’d failed to demonstrate widespread local support for the change.

Pagaran refused to concede defeat. This past spring he submitted a new and more substantial application. With clear evidence of much greater community support for the change, the commission’s nine-member Geographic Names board approved his request.

One crucial step remained, however: Pagaran had to convince the U.S. Board on Geographic Names his proposed name change was worthy and appropriate. The criteria for name changes present significant hurdles, including local usage, descriptive name, historical name, Alaska Native name (however suitable it might be, Yuyanq’ Ch’ex has no documented historic use), and rationale for the name change.

The Mountaineering Club of Alaska (MCA) has continued to oppose the adoption of Yuyanq’ Ch’ex for a long list of reasons, including the ones given above, and its Geographic Names Committee voted unanimously to oppose Pagaran’s initial proposal. When contacted in April, Steve Gruhn, chair of that committee, informed me, “I haven’t yet seen any new information since we submitted our comments [in 2021],” nor has the club “received a request for comment on any revised proposal.” In the absence of any new information, the MCA continued to stand behind the comments made in 2021, Gruhn added.

In the end, the MCA stood virtually alone in its opposition.

Following the historical commission’s initial rejection, Pagaran did “an immense amount of work” to demonstrate why Yuyanq’ Ch’ex is a relevant and appropriate name that “can make a powerful statement,” one that honors “the First Alaskans of this region, the Dena’ina” while at the same time removing a name “that is derogatory, painful and inappropriate and doesn’t agree with the First Alaskans’ view of (these) beautiful mountains.”

Along the way, Pagaran lined up a wide spectrum of local supporters, among them Mayor Dave Bronson; the Anchorage Assembly; several of Anchorage’s community councils (especially those that represent neighborhoods closest to the Chugach Front Range); all the Native tribes that live in the area and a variety of other Alaska Native groups; the Boy Scouts of Anchorage; Alaska State Parks Director Ricky Gease; and a group to which I belong, Friends of Chugach State Park.

It also helped greatly that one influential group initially opposed to the name change reversed its stance: Chugach State Park’s Citizens’ Advisory Board.

Ultimately, even the Alaska Legislature got involved and sent a letter of support.

Two other factors almost certainly came into play when the U.S. Board on Geographic Names took its vote: first, there is a current movement across the nation, supported and even pushed by President Joe Biden’s administration, to remove offensive place names and, where possible, replace them with more traditional indigenous ones. Second, the original name of Suicides has no real connection to the twin peaks that were given the name.

In researching my earlier column, I learned that the history of the Suicides’ original naming is vague at best. The most widely accepted explanation is that they were named by local railroad workers, who, the story goes, considered them so intimidating that a person would have to be suicidal to attempt climbing them.

From what I’ve read, four peaks were originally included in the “Suicides” group. But in 1951 the U.S. Geological Survey applied the name to only the North and South Suicide Peaks, which form a recognizable pair even from a distance, and those had been considered the two mountains’ officially recognized names since then.

All that I’ve been able to learn makes it clear that North and South Suicide Peaks were arbitrarily and, it can be argued, even flippantly named, for reasons that have nothing to do with the mountains and their features or their connection to the local landscape or its human residents. Besides that, two of the peaks originally included in the Suicides group have already been renamed (apparently to Avalanche Peak and the even more strangely named Homicide Peak).

As I noted in my original column, given our increased recognition of the dark and painful place that suicide has in Alaska’s culture, the time seems right to give these mountains new names. And what could be more appropriate than poetic names that speak of high places, chosen by a Dena’ina Athabascan elder, someone representing people who lived here long before railroad crews offered their opinions of the mountains.

I’m happy for William Pagaran and impressed by the groundswell of support he stirred. And, as one who loves that area of the park, I’m delighted that a portion of the Chugach Front Range is now blessed by Heaven’s Breath, both North and South.

Anchorage nature writer and wildlands/wildlife advocate Bill Sherwonit is a widely published essayist and the author of more than a dozen books, including “Living with Wildness: An Alaskan Odyssey” and “Animal Stories: Encounters with Alaska’s Wildlife.” Readers wishing to send comments or questions directly to Bill may do so at akgriz@hotmail.com