Answer:
It’s easy to imagine Denali as existing apart from mankind, but humans have been living in Denali National Park for more than 11,000 years. The harsh winters mean that only a few archeological sites or artifacts have been preserved.
In the last 500 years, the park was inhabited primarily by the Koyukon, Tanana and Dena’ina people. They all called Denali mountain by a different word in their own languages. It was the Koyukon Athabaskans who referred to the huge, towering mountain as Dinale, which means “tall one.”
These cultures were mostly hunter-gatherers, subsisting off the land and trapping. Their trapping proficiency led to their first interactions with Russian traders. Unfortunately, many of the native peoples of Denali were exposed to smallpox and other infectious diseases to which they had no immunity through trade, and their numbers in the region were greatly reduced. Yet there is still a strong cultural presence of native communities in Denali and many opportunities for visitors to learn more about the region’s ancestral inhabitants.
