Nevada Silsby-Inman’s love for national parks began with her mother. Summers at Acadia National Park were a tradition for her family, cementing the destination as where her childhood unfolded in the scent of the park’s evergreen trees and the sound of waves crashing on the shore of Sand Beach.
The yearly treks to the national park — nestled in the mid-section of Maine’s Mount Desert Island near where Silsby-Inman’s grandparents lived — started when she was a toddler.
“We would usually lounge on the beach for hours, drive up to Cadillac Mountain[’s] summit and hike through the evergreen woods doing ranger programs,” Silsby-Inman said via email.
But for the second-year public history major at Ball State University, one hike remains a poignant memory nearly three years later. The Silsby-Inman family made a journey back to Maine in the dead of winter rather than June, as they always had, to hike to the familiar summit of Cadillac Mountain.
Lacing up their hiking boots and starting their expedition in the early morning hours of New Year’s Day, the family’s hike marked several firsts for Silsby-Inman: her first winter spent in Maine, her first hike from sea level to the mountain’s summit and her first time returning to Acadia since her mother’s passing that past fall.
Silsby-Inman said the park’s rocky coastline, steep summits and sandy beaches were the same backdrop of her mother’s teenage summers. With her younger brother and father in tow, the freezing first morning of the new year was spent scaling up the tallest mountain on the eastern seaboard.
“We were unprepared for Maine winter, especially while hiking up a mountain,” she said. “But it was so beautiful and so worth it.”
With icicles clinging to the mountain’s exposed rock faces and the frozen ocean air stinging their skin, the family reached Cadillac’s summit and took in the panoramic view at its peak. Silsby-Inman said reaching the summit was a “feeling so out of body” — a break from the grief that had been ever-present in the months following her mother’s death.
Over the past few years, Silsby-Inman has volunteered at the Indiana Dunes National Park and Zion National Park, driven by her goal of building a career with the U.S. National Park Service (NPS). But as she packed her bags for her week-long volunteer trip to the Dunes this past spring break, she received the news that hundreds of national parks employees were being fired across the country.
“My first thought was, ‘These rangers and employees are good people,’” Silsby-Inman said. “They have helped raise me nearly every summer since age five.”
In late February, nearly 1,000 National Park Service employees were fired following government-wide reductions spearheaded by President Donald Trump’s administration and the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, currently captained by senior adviser and billionaire businessman Elon Musk.
In the early months of the new presidential administration, agency leaders were urged to plan for “large-scale reductions in force,” according to the Associated Press (AP). With upwards of a thousand NPS workers removed from their posts, concerns over how the United States’ 433 national parks, historic landmarks and other protected sites will be managed have been heard from all corners of the country.
While the Trump administration partially backtracked on its elimination efforts and vowed to restore the jobs of dozens of employees let go from their NPS positions, only an estimated 50 NPS positions are currently undergoing restoration. Some of the Hoosiers who helped maintain the Indiana Dunes National Park and other protected sites are still without jobs.
Within the past month, Betsy Maher, the executive director of the Indiana-based nonprofit Save the Dunes, has been in contact with multiple sources, who confirmed four employees were “abruptly fired” from the Dunes around Feb. 14. Additionally, a Denver-based employee — an individual who lived locally and was assigned to several regional projects — was also let go.
Maher added that the five individuals were impacted by probationary firings, meaning their positions had “less protection” due to being hired only within the last year.
Because these individuals were federal employees, Maher said information on the number of people fired and their positions had to be obtained from outside organizations. She said that of those fired, one individual managed wildfires — a “regular occurrence” for the Dunes — and worked on fires regionally for the NPS. Another employee allegedly worked in the maintenance and restoration department.
The restoration efforts of Indiana’s only national park, which preserve a biological diversity that ranks the Dunes as the fourth most biodiverse national park, are just one piece of the puzzle in maintaining the park’s 15,000 acres and numerous complexes.
“Rangers do all they do out of love, and it’s hard to watch them lose what they have worked so hard for as someone wanting to do the same,” Silsby-Inman said, adding that with an “understaffed and underappreciated park” like the Indiana Dunes, the outcome could be “extremely damaging.”
The Ball State Daily News (DN) contacted Indiana Dunes National Park and was put in contact with Bruce Rowe, the park's education and public information officer.
Rowe requested an email compiling a short summary of the initial request, additional questions and contact information for the publication before forwarding the email to the NPS Office of Communications.
“All media requests on the government restructuring must be sent to our Washington Communications Office for response,” Rowe said via email.
The DN’s initial media request asked for a statement providing the total number of park employees fired from the Indiana Dunes following the government-wide federal firings and if the Indiana Dunes would restore those positions and hire more seasonal workers as a result of the president’s avowal to restore NPS jobs and employ additional seasonal workers.
In an email statement, the NPS said the federal agency is “hiring seasonal workers to continue enhancing the visitor experience” as the parks “embrace new opportunities for optimization and innovation in workforce management.”
The statement goes on to state that the NPS is “working closely” with the Office of Personnel Management to “ensure [it is] prioritizing fiscal responsibility for the American people,” adding that NPS teams are “dedicated to staffing to meet the evolving needs of [national parks] visitors.”
After a follow-up request from the DN, emphasizing the request for a confirmation of how many NPS workers were fired from the Dunes and if those jobs would be restored, the response email from the NPS stated the agency had “nothing more” to add.
Maher said that while she understands the need of “doing less with more,” the national parks and their services aren’t areas with “a lot of fat to trim.”
“You may experience less staff at visitor centers to answer questions, longer lines getting into the park and [affected] positions that collect the fees when you enter the park,” she said. “… It has a domino effect.”
According to NPR, a Maryland federal judge ordered the Trump administration to temporarily reinstate thousands of unlawfully fired federal employees across 18 agencies March 14, hours after a similar ruling in San Francisco. Although temporary, restoring the positions of fired NPS workers and recruiting seasonal staff may take time. Maher warned the firings, along with a “freezing” of the seasonal hiring positions, could still impact the visitor experience as the park approaches its peak visitation season in the spring and summer.
“If there’s an emergency and someone needs first aid, unstocked things, trash receptacles, those kinds of things are the nuts and bolts of the park,” Maher said. “The park has already seen a decline in [staffing] budget by 20 percent while the visitation has increased by 16 percent.”
Growing up in Chicago’s southwest suburbs, just a car ride along Lake Michigan’s shoreline from the Dunes, Maher said the park has been a part of her entire life. Now, in her role with the environmental advocacy nonprofit, she continues to work to “protect and advocate for the perpetual health and vitality” of the national park.
In light of the recent firings, Maher hopes discussing the Dunes will raise awareness of the topic and encourage more volunteers and visitors to visit the park.
A Facebook post from Save the Dunes urged Hoosiers to call state representatives to voice their concerns. The organization provided a script and included a link from the Indiana government website, where interested Hoosiers can find and contact their congressional legislators.
“It’s important the community understands what the impacts are going to be for their experiences and the parks they care about,” Maher said.
Beyond contacting local politicians, Silsby-Inman said speaking out is a “good step in the right direction.”
“We as the American public need to be advocating hard for our parks and their protectors,” Silsby-Inman said. “There needs to be a united public front of people who are vocal about how much the parks mean to them. Help them.”
Contact Kate Farr via email at kate.farr@bsu.edu.
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