In Glacier National Park, a rally for public lands and the people who work there

Kellie Ileto stood at the edge of the Going-to-the-Sun Road Saturday as it enters West Glacier holding one sign that said, “Only you can stand up for National Parks, National Forests and State Trust Lands” and another that said, “Why? Federal employees who protect them were fired.”

Ileto is not a federal worker. She’s a local school teacher, avid hiker and skier, and she said she felt like she had to get involved. Originally from Maryland, she came out here to teach and enjoy the great outdoors, she said.

Federal employees are a valuable asset, and it’s important that we have enough Park Service and Forest Service employees to ensure they’re managed and protected properly, she said.

“You have to think about the future,” she said. “Protecting them now gives our children an opportunity to enjoy them.”

Standing out there alone, she said she had seen the gamut of reactions. Many people were positive. One woman stopped, rolled her window down and thanked her for efforts. But others, Ileto said, had flipped her off and one person yelled a racial slur at her.

“It’s not going to stop me,” she said. “… With everything going on, I felt like I had to do something.”

(As a point of accuracy, state trust lands are managed by the state of Montana, not the federal government. There have not been mass layoffs in state government.)

Ileto was not actually alone. About 120 other people were just a few miles away inside Glacier National Park proper.

Many of them former or current Park Service or Forest Service employees, along with family and friends and other supporters, they held a rally for public lands and to protest recent firings at both agencies under Trump administration directives.

They gathered in Apgar. It was a bluebird day and the high peaks above Lake McDonald towered in the background.

Michael Maierhoff was part of the rally. He worked for years as a trail crew member out of Choteau on the Rocky Mountain Ranger District.

He lost his job when thousands of federal probationary employees were fired, along with seven other members of the trail crew. As it stands, there’s only three of a crew of 12 left, he said.

The Rocky Mountain Ranger District has about 1,000 miles of trails, he noted.

The woods were not only his living, they were his lifeblood, he noted. He met his fiancé, Katie Haas back in the Bob Marshall Wilderness.

She was on a volunteer hitch doing work for the Bob Marshall Wilderness Foundation. She became ill on the trip. He helped her out and the two hit it off.

“I planned on (working in the woods) the rest of my life,” he said.

Maierhoff is now looking at a job as a farrier, which will at least keep him in touch with the landscape through the horses and mules that are used to haul supplies in and out of the wilderness.

Dr. Suzanne Hildner came out to support the cause as well.

“To add my voice to what I consider crimes to public lands and the American public,” she said.

The rally lasted about an hour and a half inside the park and then people went out to West Glacier and joined Ileto along the highway.

The Department of Interior recently announced it was hiring 7,700 seasonal Park Service employees this summer, which is about 1,350 more than the three-year average. But Sarah Lundstrum of the National Parks Conservation Association had concerns on whether those jobs would ultimately get filled. Congressional budgets are calling for staff reductions, not hirings.

The people rallying in Glacier were part of a nationwide movement to have rallies in all 433 units of the National Park Service on March 1.

The effort was spearheaded by a group of 650-plus off duty park rangers.

The rally in Glacier did have the necessary permits and active duty rangers did watch the proceedings in the event of any issues. There were none.

Organizers noted the economic benefits of public lands and national parks. In 2023, 325 million visited national parks nationwide and spent an estimated $26.4 billion in gateway communities.

In Glacier alone, a Park Service report found that in 2022 visitors spent an estimated $368 million in communities near the park. In 2023, that number was $372 million. Spending supported 5,730 jobs in the local area.

Statewide in 2023, 5.7 million park visitors spent an estimated $716 million in local gateway regions while visiting National Park Service lands in Montana. These expenditures supported a total of 10,900 jobs, $362 million in labor income, $551 million in value added, and $1.1 billion in economic output in the Montana economy.

When asked if there would be more rallies as summer approached, one organizer said yes. They also stressed that the rally did not represent the official stance of the Park Service, the Forest Service or the Department of Interior.