This map by the state of Alaska shows the location of Mount Carola in the Alaska Range. (State of Alaska image)
The federal government may name an Alaska Range mountain after a longtime Talkeetna miner and pioneer woman this week.
On Thursday, the domestic names committee of the U.S. Board on Geographic Names is scheduled to meet in Washington, D.C., to consider proposals for new names. On its agenda is Mount Carola, a mountain between Ruth Glacier and Tokositna Glacier in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough.
The mountain doesn’t currently have a federally registered name, according to U.S. Geological Survey records.
Carola June Young, born in 1936, was a longtime resident of Talkeetna and the rural Matanuska-Susitna Borough. She was a former owner of the Fairview Inn in Talkeetna, one of the founders of the local Veterans of Foreign Wars post, and former president of the Yentna Mining District, which includes Petersville.
After her death in 2018, one of her daughters, Michele Stevens, sought to name the mountain — which overlooks the Cache Creek area, her home for 40 years — in her honor.
The naming is supported by the Talkeetna Historical Society, the Mat-Su planning commission and the Alaska Miners Association, which petitioned the Alaska Historical Commission, the last stop before the national board.
“Carola Young embodies the Alaska spirit and is the kind of legend we can all be proud of,” wrote Deantha Skibinski, executive director of the Alaska Miners Association, “and AMA could not be more proud to endorse naming a mountain after her.”
During its October 2024 meeting, the board voted 6-1 to approve the nomination and submit it for federal approval.
At the same meeting, the board approved the renaming of Arkose Peak to Souvenir Peak, and it approved the naming of a nearby, unnamed mountain to Arkose Peak, reflecting local use by mountaineers and skiers.
Both peaks, each above 5,000 feet high, are in the Talkeetna Mountains within the Matanuska-Susitna Borough.
Neither of those proposals is on the federal board’s agenda this month, nor is a proposal to rename “Nazi Creek” in the Aleutians. The Alaska Historical Commission approved that latter change in April, but it remains under consideration by the federal board.
The World War II-era name was chosen as part of a pattern of naming features in a grid starting with different letters of the alphabet, and advocates for the change said the original naming was arbitrary.
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