Native American Maple Sugaring: One Drip at a Time

One Drip at a Time, photo by Graphic Knight.

Eric took this photo of an American Indian demonstration on how maple trees were tapped for collecting the sap to make maple syrup at the Kensington Metropark Farm Learning Center. He also has a couple photos of them boiling the say to make maple syrup.

It’s said that there was a time when the sap of the maple tree was as thick and sweet as honey. More practical tales are told of how Nanahboozhoo taught the making of maple sugar:

Then Nanahboozhoo gave the Indians a bucket made of Birch bark, and a stone tapping-gouge with which to make holes in the tree-trunks; and he shaped for them some Cedar spiles or little spouts, to put in the holes, and through which the sap might run from the trees into buckets. He told them, too, that they must build great fireplaces in the woods near the Maple groves, and when the buckets were full of sap, they must pour it into their kettles, and boil it down. And the amount of Sugar they might boil each Spring would depend on the number of Cedar spiles and Birch bark buckets they made during the Winter.

You can learn about a traditional Native American sugarbush from NativeTech and take a look inside the book Ininatig’s Gift of Sugar: Traditional Native Sugarmaking.

Also be sure to check out The Cycle of Sweetness: From Sap to Maple Syrup on Michigan in Pictures for more photos of this fascinating process.

The Sugar House

The Sugar House, photo by grodapictures.

Melissa writes “My Dad built this so he could make Maple Syrup every spring. My Mom “loves” making maple syrup.”

This photo is from somewhere around Iron River. Check out Melissa’s films at Groda Pictures.

(Michpics feature on maple syrup)

The Cycle of Sweetness: From Sap to Maple Syrup

Spile, photo by Jan Fox ©

In an ideal world, I’d be able to lay out the process of making maple syrup using nothing but Michigan photos. Unfortunately, I can’t. I should be able to as my family used to sugar when I was a kid. I can only find a couple of the photos my dad took though. Such is life. I find maple sugaring a fascinating subject, so I’ll try and pull off a whirlwind tour of how it gets made. Bear in mind that we are discussing maple syrup here, Mrs. Butterworth, get outta here!

The roots of maple syrup start with the first Americans, and the fact that somewhere along the line, someone discovered that the sap of maple trees is sweet. If you ever get a chance to taste ice-cold sap in the spring, please do! Be warned that once the trees have budded, sap tastes bitter.
The process of sap collection is relatively simple. A hole is drilled in a maple tree and a spile like the one in the photo above is hammered into the hole. A bucket (or buckets) is then hung on the spile into which sap drips. Cold nights and warm days produce the best sap flow. For a few trees, folk will use a larger bucket while the big sugaring operations use a network of plastic lines.

In any case, the sap is collected and stored until such time as you are ready to boil it down (photo part of a great set of pictures!). This takes hours and hours and it takes 30 or 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup. Anyone who has ever made this knows that there’s no way sugar and carmel coloring are ever going to equal real maple syrup atop a stack of pancakes.

If all goes well, you will be able to see some or all of the photos featured here at the “sweetcycle” tag on Flickr.

View a Collection from 1940 by Marion Post Wolcott in the Library of Congress

How to Make Maple Syrup from the Michigan Maple Syrup Association

Native American Maple Sugaring: One Drip at a Time on Michigan in Pictures

Great information about Michigan maple syrup and maple syrup events from Absolute Michigan