No one is sure of when maple sugar or maple syrup was invented. The Indigenous people of eastern North America had harvested sap from the maple trees during the maple moon and boiled it down into syrup or sugar for generations before the first European settlers arrived here. They had used it to boil and cure meat from wild animals. This sweet cured meat could be stored for later use.
Years before the Europeans arrived with iron pots, the natives harvested sap during the maple moon by carving a notch in the bark of the maple tree and used a short hollow basswood branch inserted into the notch in the bark to direct the sap into birch bark bowls.
The sap was collected and put into large birch bark pots that were heated by putting hot rocks into the sap. Eventually the sap was reduced to syrup.
The first account of settlers making maple syrup or sugar was noted by Mark Lescarbot in 1606. Early French settlers had learned from the Mi’kmaq how to collect sap and make it.
By the 1700s the settlers drilled holes in the tree, where they inserted wooden spouts which dripped sap into hollowed out wooden logs. The sap was then collected and dumped into cast iron pots suspended over a raging fire. There the sap was boiled down into maple syrup or sugar.
Just like other types of farming maple syrup production has changed through the years to be an easier and more efficient industry.
Tapping changed from a V notch carved in the bark of the maple tree, to a hole drilled where a wooden spile was inserted, to the use of metal spiles, to today’s small quarter inch plastic spile. The smaller spile is less invasive to the tree and grows over much faster. Sap collection changed from the use of a birch bark bowl to hollowed out wooden logs, to wooden buckets, to tin sap cans, to today’s plastic pipelines that no rain, bugs, flies or other debris can get into the sap that flows clean from the maple trees.
Where cords of wood used to be burned each year to boil the sap down into syrup now sap is passed through a reverse osmosis machine which removes much of the water from the maple sap and greatly reduces the time to boil down the now concentrated sap into syrup or sugar.
Our early pioneers used cast iron kettles to boil the sap in. Now syrup producers use stainless steel evaporators that are covered, except for a large steam pipe to allow the steam to escape.
There used to be a significant amount of smoke and ash from the open fire which would get into the old cast iron kettle. Most of this smoke and ash and other debris was filtered out before bottling the finished syrup but today’s method allows the producer to bottle a cleaner, lighter coloured, less smoky product.
Although labour efficiency has increased as much as any other industry all this new technology does not come without a cost. A reverse osmosis machine can cost more than a new truck.
If you have purchased a set of stainless cookware; you can guess at the cost of equipping the sugar camp with everything inside it in stainless steel. Even a brix meter to check the sugar content of sap and syrup and help ensure top quality syrup is used.
Before I was a teenager; Elson and I decided to make a little maple syrup. Our fathers were both raised in Thorne where their families made maple syrup every year to greatly supplement the family income.
They were excellent but strict teachers. They taught us that the syrup must be very clean, taste excellent with no smoky taste and be boiled down enough that if mom kept the syrup in the freezer the container would not break. If you buy syrup from someone and the syrup container freezes and breaks in the freezer by the time the housewife cleans the half frozen syrup from the freezer, she will never buy your syrup again.
We progressed to a little sugar house and a pan to evaporate the sap in but by the time we finished high school, we decided that there were easier ways to make a living than making maple syrup.
Anyone who has gathered sap while sinking through two feet of snow will agree that even if maple syrup goes to $100 a gallon, we will gladly buy it rather than make it.
There have always been a few dishonest syrup producers who added white sugar to the syrup making process. White sugar is much cheaper than maple syrup. Know and trust your maple syrup producer to supply only 100 per cent maple syrup. Now that the chemical glyphosate can be easily detected in parts per billion; if sugar had been added in the maple sugar making process, it can most likely be detected.
The cabane a sucre or sugar camp has always been known as a great place to visit during the maple moon. There was always the great, sweet smell of boiling syrup, happy friends to chat with and sometimes old time fiddle music and traditional sugar shack food. Some of these sugar camps in Quebec, Ontario, and Vermont are open year long for meetings, parties, weddings and meals.
The most recognized Canadian symbol in the world is the maple leaf. The most recognized Canadian food in the world is maple syrup. The most recognized fiddle tune in the world is “Maple Sugar” by Ward Allan. We proudly live in a place in the world where we have it all at our back door and take it for granted. Enjoy real maple syrup.
Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon on land that has been in his family for generations. gladcrest@gmail.com
