Karen Wils photo At right, a young Bob uses the planting bar to plant spruce trees.

ESCANABA — Let every lofty pine, majestic maple and awesome oak tree lift up their branches high and celebrate.

It’s Arbor Day (April 25). Happy Arbor Day and happy belated Earth Day (April 22).

These national holidays are like “Old Home Week” to us Yoopers. Nobody loves the Earth and the forest like the folks from Upper Michigan.

Earth Day was first observed in 1970 to help us respect the Earth and clean up our environment.

Arbor Day became a legal holiday way back in 1885. “Arbor” is the Latin word for “tree.” The idea behind Arbor Day was to have people help out Mother Nature by planting tree saplings around their towns. Even today, Scout Troops and schools plant trees in the park or on the playground for Arbor Day.

Nobody has to tell us Yoopers about how trees beautify our cities, purify our air, cool our environment, prevent erosion and provide habitat for hundreds of fantastic wild animals, birds and plants.

Trees are a renewable resource that if managed correctly just keep on giving and giving. From apples to acorns and from maple syrup to mighty saw logs (lumber), where would the U.P. be without a thriving forest?

Basswood blossoms feed the bees, willow trees hug the river and shade it to help it stay cool, the cedars are a wind break and thermal protection for wildlife in winter and the lilac is just a gift of perfect fragrance in the springtime.

We have many people to thank for our forests and wild places today. President Teddy Roosvelt, the 26th president of the United States, was called the “conservation president.” He was a hunter and a naturalist. He started the U.S Forest Service and was instrumental in creating the National Park and National Monuments.

Our very own great-grandparents who planted the old apple orchard and let the aspen, birch and maples regenerated on their homesteads have helped us to have green spaces today. Our parents, back in the 1970s said, “give a hoot, don’t pollute,” and they used the planting bar and stuck hundreds of spruce and fir saplings in the ground around our family camps and homes.

Today more than ever we need to put the Earth first.

The late Pope Francis was known as the “green pope” because of his concern for the Earth. I will close this column with a quote from him, “We received this world as inheritance from past generations, but also as a loan from future generations, to whom we will have to return it.”

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Karen (Rose) Wils is a lifelong north Escanaba resident. Her folksy columns appear weekly in Lifestyles.