New campaign begins to change Mount Rainier’s name [Video]

TACOMA, Wash — Mount Rainier National Park is celebrating its 125th anniversary this year but the mountain has been important to people for many generations before it was called “Rainier.”

“The mountain is our life giver,” said Amber Hayward, Program Director of the Puyallup Tribal Language Program. “She is sacred. Everything we need has come from her. We go there when we’re lost. We go there when we need to pray. We go there when we need to keep our traditions alive.”

To visit the mountain is to hike through a sacred place. A healing space. “The grandmother” to the people who have lived here thousands and thousands of years before British explorer George Vancouver decided to name it after an admiral he befriended.

“Are you referring to Rainier? We call it the ‘R’ word around here,” laughed Brandon Reynon, director of …