Some ‘Loser’ National Parks Could Soon Have Their NPS Status Taken Away, Congressman Announced

About 60 miles northwest of Bismarck, lounging on the northern tip of North Dakota’s city of Stanton, the Knife River Indian Villages invites humans to travel back in time to 300 years. At the watersmeet of the Knife and Missouri Rivers unfolds a storybook that tells the forgotten tales of the Northern Plains Indians. Stepping into the village is like stepping into an ancient world where men are leaving their homes to hunt animals and women are sitting in their kitchens, pounding the “Three Sisters,” corn, squash, and beans with a mortar and pestle.

Walk to an earthlodge in the park and you might find yourself smelling the smoky whiffs swirling out of their kitchens. At the intersections of wetlands, rolling plains, forests, and river bluffs, the park dances with a wavy tapestry of cottonwood trees, willow branches, dried prairie grass, and thick sod. Today, these trails are invaded by white pelicans, snow geese, and blue herons. Despite being bejeweled with patterns of sheer beauty, this national historic site hasn’t made the “crown jewels” list of Doug Burgum, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior, according to a report by The Travel.

While delivering a statement to Congress on May 21, 2025, Burgum engaged in a question-and-answer period with U.S. Senators. While speaking about budget cuts in the National Park System, he described that he has classified the U.S. National Parks in two categories: the moneymakers, a.k.a. winners, and the cost centers, a.k.a. losers. Out of these, he sorted a list of 63 parks as “crown jewels” of the National Park System. He made these classifications based on the park’s revenues and visitor numbers.

"Some park units have almost no visitors; they’re cost centers,” he noted. According to NPS, the National Park System is a patchwork of 433 individual park units that are scattered across an area of 85 million acres, spanning 50 states, the District of Columbia, and US territories. If a park is solely monitored by its revenue and doesn’t receive a good amount of crowd, then it is regarded as a “cost center” according to Burgum. Knife Indian River Villages is one of them, Burgum related, while speaking about the national parks in his hometown, North Dakota.

Those who are solely known for revenue and not visitors are regarded as “winners,” while others are regarded as “losers.” With the government shutdown plunging the national park system into a grim stalemate, these losers are even more likely to get tossed out of their national park status. Mass layoffs, staffing shortages, and budget cuts are slowly chipping away at the sparkle of their national park status.

The National Park System doesn’t just consist of national parks like Yellowstone and Yosemite, but also a variety of sites like national monuments, national historic sites, national recreation areas, and national battlefields. According to a court filing submitted in the Northern District of California, the NPS is preparing to lay off more than 2,000 federal employees, which means the “losers” are on the brink of getting excluded from the national park patchwork.

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