The island of Antigua, part of the two-island country of Antigua and Barbuda, plans to create a national park on its highest point, 1,319-foot (402-meter) Boggy Peak on the southern part of the island. Baldwin Spencer, the country’s prime minister, announced just after the last US presidential election that as part of the festivities they would also rename the peak Mount Obama after Barack Obama. The park will be named Mount Obama Monument and National Park.
The official naming ceremony will be held on August 4, President Obama’s 48th birthday. The president is, of course, invited to attend the renaming but somehow I imagine he has other plans. Still it’s an honor that this little 174-square-mile country, part of the Lesser Antilles or Leeward Islands in the eastern Caribbean Sea, plans to attach Obama’s name to the dry peak.
Not every president gets a mountain named after him. Well, I can think of Mount Lincoln in Colorado, Mount McKinley AKA Denali in Alaska, Mount Washington in New Hampshire, and, hmmmm, what else? I know there hasn’t been a big movement to rename some rocky Iraqi peak Mount Bush. Then there’s the whole national park deal. The only one is Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, named for conservation president Teddy Roosevelt. So even if Obama National Park is on some little island, it’s still an honor.
The prime minister also says they plan to build a network of trails on the massif, as well as erect a museum, education center, and what he called “entertainment facilities,” whatever that means. Baldwin also says Obama National Park and Obama Peak will be a "beacon of hope for all people." I imagine that refers to tourists.
It’s a really great publicity ploy. Antigua relies primarily on the tourist buck, more than half its economy relies on tourism, along with internet gambling, offshore banking, and a couple medical schools. No details have been released how the proposed park will be funded so it could be a little iffy if it ever gets much beyond the Mount Obama renaming ceremony.
Still, if you rename it, they will come. Good on ya, Antigua. If I come, I will climb it.
Photograph top: Mount Obama overlooks Englishman’s Harbor and St. John’s on the island of Antigua. Photograph © Philip Coblentz/Getty Images
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Great story. In addition to a National Park, TR has as a legacy Mt. Roosevelt above Deadwood, SD. There, on July 4, 1919, his old friends Seth Bullock, Sheriff of deadwood and Leonard Wood, commander of the Rough Riders, dedicated the first posthumous memorial to TR, a simple rock and cement tower. Thanks for the news on Mt. Obama.