As a National Scenic Trail, the North Country Trail falls under the National Park Service. Though North Country Trail Association Executive Director Andrea Ketchmark says there are dozens of other federal, state, and local agencies that support it as well as non-profits like the NCTA which she leads.
“We do have 15 staff across the trail that work to support our partnerships, but we have 1000s of volunteers that are out there actually digging in the dirt and building the trail,” said Ketchmark.
Their work often depends on federal funding to maintain and build trail segments, federal funding that is now at risk.
“Not only future funding, we totally support that Congress should do its job in the budgeting process, and it's not the role for DOGE or the President to come in after the fact and start taking grants away from organizations like the North Country Trail Association that expect those funds, and need those funds to do our work,” said Ketchmark.
Ketchmark says her organization is being told funding approved through the Great American Outdoors Act and the Inflation Reduction Act are not being spent. Both were bipartisan pieces of legislation.
“We had lots of projects planned in eight states that are not going to happen, not only because of the loss of federal money, but because of the inability for us as a partner to do our side of that. We are providing match and volunteer labor in most of these projects,” said Ketchmark.
While she’s concerned about trail work, Ketchmark is also concerned about the impact it will have on communities along the North Country Trail.
That funding often makes its way into communities where the work is being done.
“If we don't have the funding and we don't have the staff to implement the projects, that means that we don't have the business that we give the local lumber store and our volunteers traveling from downstate to come up to work on the trail and to stay a whole week, the contractors that we had planned to pay for major bridge construction and things like that,” said Ketchmark.
Federal employees
The North Country Trail Association is a nonprofit organization that coordinates with federal, state, and local agencies, but still works independently.
Even with that separation, Ketchmark says the loss of federal employees within the National Park Service and U.S. Forest Service can hurt their work.
Ketchmark said she heard from the Forest Service that they lost 20 to 30 staff per forest.
In this region, the North Country Trail goes through parts of the Ottawa and Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forests. WXPR is working to confirm how many employees were fired in the local National Forests with the recent federal layoffs.
“We're seeing people lose their jobs very indiscriminately. They're not making decisions based on people's work performance. We want to retain those staff and bring back the ones that have been terminated,” said Ketchmark.
According to Ketchmark, one of those employees that was terminated was a planner position for the National Park Service.
She oversaw the 5,000 miles of trail and was tasked with the 1,500 miles still yet to be developed.
Ketchmark says that employee was 11 months into her 12 month probationary period when she was fired.
“She was an excellent employee. Had exceeds expectations in her performance review, yet in her termination letter, it actually stated you didn't live up to standards. It's just, they're not telling the truth, and it's really disheartening,” said Ketchmark.
Hike the Hill
Ketchmark is in Washington D.C. this week as part of the annual “Hike the Hill” event which brings together trail advocates from across the county to D.C. to make sure lawmakers know how important trail systems like the North Country Trail are.
The event has been going on for decades, but Ketchmark says this year is a bit of a different message, not only to protect funding, but to protect federal employees that work on the trails.
“We get it. There's not an endless amount of money. What we say is that, you know, we looked at that as Congress's job,” said Ketchmark. “Congress has the role to make a budget, and to make a balanced budget. It is not the President's job to come in and make the decision to take money that Congress already appropriated.”
Ketchmark says she’s worried about the North Country Trail, but knows that there is a lot of support for it and work that they can still get done.
“We know that even in hard times we do survive, but it is going to get harder,” said Ketchmark.
