Supporting an effort to rename the Suicide Peaks

William Pagaran is a man on a mission, and he doesn’t give up easily.

Pagaran began his crusade to rename Chugach State Park’s North and South Suicide Peaks in 2020. In 2021, his proposal to change their names to North and South Yuyanq’ Ch’ex—”Heaven’s Breath” in English—was denied by the Alaska Historical Commission. But Pagaran has refused to concede defeat. He recently submitted a new and more substantial application to rename the peaks and hopes that when the commission meets in June, the nine-member Geographic Names board will this time approve his request. That wouldn’t be the end of the process, but it’s a necessary step along the way.

I only learned about Pagaran’s campaign this month, and I’m now among those Alaskans who support his renaming effort. In this column, I’ll explain why. I’ll also share what I’ve learned from him and others involved in this issue, which is considerably more complicated than I first imagined.

It’s important to note that the renaming of the Suicide Peaks is only one part of Pagaran’s effort to curtail suicides in Alaska, particularly within our state’s indigenous communities. He’s president of Carry the Cure, a non-profit, faith-based organization dedicated to “comprehensive suicide and abuse prevention and healthy lifestyle choices.”

Though I’ve never felt personally offended by the names, I understand why others might be. Especially during a time when there’s increased awareness of the scourge that suicide is here in Alaska. I appreciate the desire to seek names that “value life over death.”

No doubt some are wondering, as I long did, how North and South Suicide Peaks got their original names in the first place. 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.

Originally, four peaks were 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.

Pagaran, who is part Tlingit and lives in Palmer, first took serious aim at raising awareness of the Suicide Peaks and began his push to change their names in 2020. That summer, he led a circle of Alaskans who discussed the ways suicide had affected their lives, and he then accompanied several people to the top of 5,005-foot South Suicide Peak. Participants spoke of the need to choose life over suicide—and also the need to replace the Suicide Peaks with a more life-affirming and healing name.

To learn what that name should be, Pagaran consulted with members of the Native group that has the closest ties to the local landscape, the Dena’ina Athabascan tribe. He 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—pronounced You-yonk Chech—which translates into English as “Breath from Above” or “Heaven’s Breath.”

Pagaran also began to seek support for his effort. He contacted some local groups, Native and non-Native, and started an online petition through change.org.

Then he filled out a name-change application and brought it to the state’s Alaska Historical Commission. As state historian Katie Ringsmuth has explained to me, the commission reviews any such proposal “to ensure it follows Alaska’s Geographic Names Guidelines. If not, we will request additional information.”

Pagaran’s initial application failed to meet those guidelines, especially in demonstrating local support for the change,” Ringsmuth explained.

Though Pagaran had gained some local backing for his initiative, most of it came from Native groups. In other words, he had failed to get a broad enough spectrum of local support.

Additionally, two groups with close and longstanding ties to the Chugach Mountains and Chugach State Park—the Mountaineering Club of Alaska (MCA) and the Chugach State Park Citizen Advisory Board (CAB)—presented a long list of reasons for their opposition to Pagaran’s original proposal.

Rather than give up, Pagaran went back to work.

Over the past eleven months he’s done 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.

He has lined up a long list and 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.

Meanwhile, the park’s CAB agreed to reconsider its position and just this week voted to support the name change. A significant boost to Pagaran’s renewed effort, to be sure.

The MCA, meanwhile, remains firmly opposed.

The MCA group’s Geographic Names Committee voted unanimously to oppose Pagaran’s initial proposal. Steve Gruhn, chair of that committee, recently 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, I continue to stand behind the comments [made in 2021],” he adds.

I’ll note here that the MCA’s lengthy comments hold considerable merit. The club’s Geographic Naming Committee clearly did its own homework while opposing Yuyanq’ Ch’ex on the basis of several criteria, including local usage, descriptive name, historical name, Alaska Native name (however suitable it might be, Yuyanq’ Ch’ex has no documented historical use), and rationale for the name change.

The one criterion that unquestionably has changed is that of providing “evidence of local support.”

It’s also undoubtedly true that for a while, at least, the use of North and South Yuyanq’ Ch’ex would likely cause some confusion among those referencing the mountains.

All that said, as one who has a close relationship with the Suicide Peaks (I’ve climbed the South Peak a few times and have spent many hours on the mountain’s flanks while hiking the upper reaches of Falls Creek Valley), I strongly support the name change.

There’s also this fact: though their names have officially been recognized since 1951, 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, their features, or their connection to the local landscape or human residents. Besides that, two of the peaks initially included in the Suicides group have already been renamed Avalanche Peak and the even more strangely named Homicide Peak.

Given our increased recognition of the dark and painful place that suicide has in Alaska’s culture, the time is 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?

Despite his work, I think William Pagaran might still be facing an uphill battle.

Though Katie Ringsmuth with the State Historic Preservation Office agrees that Pagaran has “diligently worked to more adequately address the guidelines,” especially the requirement demonstrating local support, some of the other criteria seem challenging to meet. And even if the Alaska Historical Commission gives Pagaran a thumbs-up later this year, he still must convince members of the U.S. Board of Geographic Names the change is warranted and meets its principles and policies.

I wish William Pagaran well on his quest and hope that someday, a part of the Chugach Front Range will be 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