Anna Tollfeldt carries a sign at the Feb. 14 walk of support for fired U.S. Forest Service workers. Tollfeldt had worked as a Forest Service biological technician in fisheries and aquatics since 2023. She was fired on Feb. 16.
On Sunday, Feb. 16, Anna Tollfeldt was fired from her job at the U.S. Forest Service.
Tollfeldt moved to Wrangell in 2022 and began working for the Forest Service the following summer. She and her partner (who is employed by the Forest Service and opted to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation) took out a mortgage on a house in town, and the couple planned to stay here indefinitely.
But now, a future in Wrangell is no longer a guarantee. With the loss of her job and the unpredictability surrounding her partner's job, the couple worries about making mortgage payments if both of them end up fired.
Tollfeldt was one of seven Forest Service workers stationed at the Wrangell Ranger District who was fired this month. The mass terminations come as the Trump administration makes slashing cuts to the federal workforce. Twenty-eight percent of Wrangell's Forest Service employees were fired.
As a biological technician in fisheries and aquatics, Tollfeldt was responsible for monitoring and studying fish and other aquatic organism populations around Wrangell. She decided on culvert locations to ensure fish populations could pass through as unobstructed as possible.
During winter months, she would hike into areas selected for snow surveys so that officials could have a better sense of what to expect from the stream flow during the summer months.
"Fish don't have a voice. They don't have a way of standing up for themselves," she said. "That was my job ... to understand and map out streams, show where the fish are and where they are not."
Tollfeldt chuckled at the fact that before joining the Forest Service, she thought it was something of a joke. When living on Prince of Wales Island, she would notice Forest Service workers standing around on the side of the road and think: They're just standing there. What are they doing?
"But now," she said, "having worked there, I think, 'OK, they were probably just having a little safety meeting before doing whatever task they had to do.'"
Born in Ketchikan, Tollfeldt, 34, has bounced around Southeast all her life. She's worked at several salmon hatcheries, in jobs that took her to Etolin Island, Petersburg and Ketchikan. After accepting a job at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Tollfeldt continued to bounce around, this time from Juneau to Prince of Wales Island and finally to Wrangell.
The Forest Service job she landed in Wrangell was something of a dream - a job that, for Tollfeldt, aligned with who she was as a person, something that satisfied her inner child, a job to be proud of.
After everything she's been through the past two weeks, that isn't something she's ready to forgo.
"Many of us are told as kids to follow our dreams and that we can be anything we put our minds to," Tollfeldt said. "Well, I'm not ready to tell my inner child to drop that concept. And I don't think anyone else should give up either."
Tollfeldt was given about a week's heads-up before receiving the official termination letter. Notably, the termination letter she received on Feb. 16 was based on a false claim of poor performance. In all her performance reviews, Tollfeldt only received "exemplary" marks, something that directly contradicts a performance-based termination.
Her supervisor warned her that he had been ordered to terminate all employees who were still within their probationary term with the Forest Service - essentially all employees within their first 12 months of employment whose job protections had not fully kicked in.
Tollfeldt was one of these employees.
"I actually started out more angry," she said on Feb. 20. "And now, as I speak to you, today is like one of the first days where I just feel defeated and sad and unwanted."
It's not difficult to understand where her feelings come from.
Her employer, the federal government, is the root of her struggle, and if Tollfeldt was looking for solace from the local community, Wrangell's well-frequented community Facebook page was not the place for that. Phrases like "karma" and "go find a new job" and "move on with life" filled the void that widespread communal support should have provided.
"Since this has all gone down, I haven't really shown my face in public much at all," she said. "I stopped looking at (the comments). There's just a lack of empathy."
As for what's next, Tollfeldt isn't sure. She's currently a full-time online student at Oregon State University, where she studies fish and wildlife conservation sciences. She's spent her entire career in Alaska, and that's not something she wants to change. But if her partner is fired in the next round of federal terminations, her home in Wrangell may be in jeopardy.
Already, unelected official Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency team are applying further pressure on the remaining federal employees. As recently as last weekend, employees received emails telling them to report five bullet points worth of weekly accomplishments. Musk said failure to reply would be taken as resignation.
"I have known Wrangell for a while," Tollfeldt said, "and I've always kind of wanted it to be home."
"Do you think that's still possible at this point," I asked.
"I don't know."
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