[squirrel chittering] - John Bates: People just absolutely love walking amongst these old trees.

There's another good woodpecker tree, yeah.

It moves your heart, it moves your spirit.

- Angela Fitzgerald: Follow John Bates into the woods, and he'll make sure you won't lose the forest for the trees.

- Child: Whoa!

- Angela: He will uncover hidden details.

- And you can age it by the distance between each one of the new stems.

This was a good year.

- Angela: And illustrate the big picture.

- So we're in what's called a hemlock hardwood forest.

- Angela: John knows well that whole forests in Wisconsin have been lost, tree by tree.

- John: We cut down, in northern Wisconsin, tens of millions of eastern hemlocks.

This was the number-one tree in the Northwoods pre-settlement, and now it represents 1% to 2% maybe of the whole Northwoods.

- Angela: The Van Vliet Hemlock State Natural Area is one spot where these great trees still loom above, making this a rare example of remaining old-growth forest.

[bird calling] Finding the state's few remaining pockets of old-growth forest set John on a mission.

- I just wanted to find all these places.

It was an adventure for me.

It's joyful.

It was exciting to find places that I didn't know about and to be thrilled by them.

- Angela: Thrills he shares on his tours.

- The song is "Sweet Tea."

[whistling] - Angela: And in his guidebook.

- These trees are our living ancestors.

They've been here for a very long time.

These old trees tie history together.

That time actually happened.

- Angela: But don't mistake these ancient trees for antiques.

- John: They're not something fossilized that we're looking at in a drawer.

They're living, but they're still 400 or 500 or more years old.

- What are they even dropping?

[John laughing] - Angela: The hemlocks are living, breathing.

- So what are you getting?

What are you finding?

- Angela: Trying to regenerate.

- So what are these?

- Child: They're hemlock cones, I think.

- John: Young hemlock cones right here.

- Angela: Old growth spawns new growth.

A cycle of life that also means accepting death.

- When somebody dies and we mourn, we grieve, and rightfully so.

But when a tree dies out here, is allowed to die, it has an ecological function that's really significant.

And it should be celebrated.

All the salmanders now living underneath there, all those white-footed mice and voles that are feeding every, the barred owl that was keeping you up.

Yeah, yeah, what do they eat?

- Angela: Toppled trees nurture new ones.

- We'll see some old trees completely covered in moss and are called nurse logs because they're nursing along all these seedlings on top.

You can see the perfect lineup of Eastern hemlocks, and now we got a bunch of yellow birch on this end.

- Angela: That lineup of new life on a log includes more than growing trees.

- John: That a hand lens?

- Hiker: Yes.

- John: A tiny little mushroom.

- Angela: Forest life comes in many sizes.

- John: It's worth looking at.

- Angela: And many shapes.

- John: Slime mold.

It's really weird looking.

This is called doll's eyes, 'cause, yeah, it looks like doll's eyes, right?

This is white baneberry.

Try to eat it, it'll be the bane of your existence.

[group laughing] - Angela: A walk in the woods with John Bates includes lessons about the forest, but more importantly, lessons from the forest.

- So the values of old growth are many.

You can feel peace here.

And what's the value of that peace?

- Angela: Peace is one thing you can take from a walk in the woods.

And that's something that John shares gladly.

- John: Let me pass that on.

Opening up that space to them, to fall deeper in love with the natural world.

[gentle acoustic guitar music]