Trees begin to bud along the Grandview Parkway and the trails lining the Boardman River.
Earth Day is tomorrow, and I think about Martin Melkild, who died March 24 after a life well-lived for 90 years.
It seems fitting to remember Martin this week. His life was about earth-friendly living, conservation of natural environments and preservation of area history.
Martin was born in Northport. He worked for the city from 1956-1982, landscaping the Grandview Parkway when it was built in the 1950s, renovating Hannah Park, the Union Street Dam area and other city parks. He started a tree nursery and planted more than 4,000 trees in Traverse City.
Martin was a supporter of conservancies, Boy Scouts and a proud Navy veteran of World War II. He was part of a 1970s group that helped Grand Traverse County create the 402-acre natural education preserve along the Boardman River south of town. It was dedicated in 1976. Part of that project was "Currents of the Boardman," a 147-page, spiral-bound book that he compiled and was published six years later by the Grand Traverse County Historical Society.
Several local conservationists, descendants of early settlers and others wrote the chapters that detailed the river's geological history, its lumber era, hydroelectric days and the creation of the natural education reserve. Martin wrote the section on the Native American history of the river basin and its old trails.
I saw Martin about three weeks before he died. He talked passionately about two concerns. He said them before, but they seem relevant this week because of local Earth Day activities and his long life of stewardship to conservation and natural environments.
1. The Open Space and waterfront along the West Bay TART Trail should remain open -- free of things like big man-made art sculptures and veterans monuments. The view of the bay is natural art at its best and should be preserved without obstruction. Veterans monuments deserve to be placed in one park elsewhere in the city as tribute to veterans of all eras.
2. The name of the Boardman River should be changed to its original Indian name shown on the region's earliest maps -- the Ottaway, probably for Ottawa or Odawa. The name change would preserve the First Peoples heritage in this area and the memory of the original landscape and towering pines that lined the river and blanketed the region for thousands of years. Boardman was the name of the man who set up the first sawmill in 1847. It calls to mind an environmentally destructive era.
I will miss Martin. His legacy and love of the Earth live on in our tree-lined streets, parks and the trails of the Boardman.
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