For one Yukon-based Parks Canada employee, this week's announcement of federal job cuts means the end of a 20-odd year career as a seasonal interpreter.

"It's the best job I ever had,” she told the Star in an interview Thursday, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

It's not just her job she's worried about though, it's the future of valuable Parks Canada services.

"It's like they're cutting off their arm to save their finger,” she said.

The employee challenges the official government line that the 30 jobs cut in the Yukon won't result in a significant loss of service.

The loss of jobs like hers means the end of guided tours at some historical sites, such as the SS Klondike in Whitehorse, which will only offer self-guided tours when the cuts take effect.

At the popular Dredge No. 4 site near Dawson City, for example, visitors won't be able to go inside starting in the summer of 2013. Instead, there will be signage set up in the parking lot.

Most visitors won't comprehend the dredge's significance if they only see it from the outside, "no matter how much signage you put there,” said the employee.

"They're not going to have any idea of what that machine meant to the territory or how it worked,” she said.

Another concern amongst Parks Canada employees, she said, is the effect these cuts will have on the maintenance of historic sites.

"We've worked for years to preserve them and now we're just going to let it go?”

The job losses themselves are significant, and not only for the individuals affected.

"Most of the Parks Canada employees I know have been here for a long time. Are they going to leave the territory, so is all that expertise going to leave the territory too?

"I think people should be somewhat concerned about that,” she said.

Many Parks Canada employees are experts in the Yukon's history and natural environment, and the loss of that knowledge from the territory could be significant.

There is particular concern in Dawson City, where the disappearance of jobs in a community of just 1,500 people will be sharply felt.

Gill Cracknell, a conservation campaigner with the Yukon chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, said the cuts will affect us in ways we might not even realize.

"It affects scientific research and monitoring, and may affect the kind of information that park managers need to protect our parks from threats to the wildlife,” she said.

Of cuts to interpretation and education programs, Cracknell said, "Connecting visitors to nature is one of their most important roles and in a time when the world is losing the natural environment so fast, it seems a very short-sighted move to me and I find it very disappointing that this is happening.

"We really need to spend more on our environment and look after it rather than going the other way,” she said.

With Parks Canada having about 110 positions in the territory, the reductions mean 27 per cent of those jobs will disappear.

Nationally, the department has said it will slash 1,689 of its jobs.

A northern spokesperson for the Public Service Alliance of Canada, which represents the workers, has not been made available for comment this week.

Spokespersons for Yukon MP Ryan Leef and the Yukon Conservation Society told the Star this week they need more time to research the job cuts' impacts before commenting publicly.