Waxing and Sugaring
A long time ago, the American Indian God, Gitchee Manitou made things so easy that life was very simple. The maple trees yielded such sweet syrup that a broken branch would drip this great treat into the Indians’ mouths. There was plenty of game and the weather was always good.
Years later a great chief, Manabozho visited his friends, the Anishinabe. He found all the members of this tribe lazily lying on the ground with their mouths up catching the rich flow of maple syrup and a dreamy look in their eyes.
This will not do, he thought. His people are becoming fat and lazy. He went down to the river with his big basket and brought many buckets of water. He went to the top of the maple trees and poured water into the trees. Now the thick syrup no longer dripped out of the broken twigs but came out thin and watery, just barely sweet to the taste.
Manabozho knew that his people would now have to gather many buckets full of sap in a birch bark basket, gather wood, make fires and heat stones to drop into the basket. They will have to heat many stones before the sap becomes thick syrup. He also declared that the sap will drip from the trees only at a certain time of the year and the gathering would not interfere with his people when they needed to hunt, fish, gather food and hoe in their fields of corn.
This legend generally describes the method the Indians used to obtain maple syrup before the European settlers came to America. An additional complication for them was that they lacked containers for the syrup and also the syrup would spoil in a short time. They had to continue to remove more water by additional heating or by skimming off the sugar free ice after a cold night. The resulting sugar would not spoil and was easily stored.
The early settlers imitated the Indians but soon advanced the procedure by using an auger to drill about 2 inch holes and use spiles to guide the sap flow into containers. Spiles were formed by removing the center of 4 – 5 inch long branches of soft wood, resulting in a hollow tube, and then shaped to fit the drilled hole. Large kettles provided by the settlers were traded to the Indians. It was reported that some Indian bands would make several hundred pounds of sugar in a season.
The settlers would make all of their sugar for an entire year and hopefully have extra to trade. All the family were involved night and day for three or four weeks. The fire had to be carefully tended, the thickening syrup had to be continually stirred with a ladle and the momma with all her household duties had to take over the stirring when the sugar began to thicken.
She would lift the paddle and observe the drops and with a certain observation she would call out, “It’s waxing.” The children would come running with their empty bowls sometimes containing snow, and their momma would ladle the syrup into the bowls and delicious taffy-like candy would form as it cooled.
Stirring and testing became very critical. The fire was lowered and finally momma would call out, “It’s sugaring.” The fire was quickly removed and the thick liquid was ladled into bowls, pots and pans. This quickly cooled into brown maple sugar.
Today, pure commercial maple syrup can only be made from the maple species found in North America. There are other maple species in most continents but they do not yield the quality or flavor of our species. Our most important species is the sugar maple and the black sugar maple. Both yield one gallon of syrup from 40 gallons of sap. Due to its abundance in some woods in Ohio, the silver maple may be used, but it takes about 60 to 65 gallons of sap to produce one gallon of syrup. Canada produces most of the world supply of maple syrup In the U. S. Vermont ranks number one, followed by New York and Ohio.
About two weeks ago, 75 first graders from Plymouth, Ohio came to the Franciscan Earth Literacy Center to see and participate in maple syrup production. They saw the tapping of the trees, the collecting of the sap, and the boiling of the sap in a large kettle. They saw how maple trees could be identified and learned the value of the sugar to the tree. Scott Grenerth of the Center was dressed in a costume of the mid 1800’s and talked to the children as if it were 1847. The demonstrations and discussions occurred in the St. Francis Woods. The children were there about one and a half hours and appeared to enjoy the outing. They also saw a demonstration of how the Indians condensed the sap, using hot stones heated in an open fire.
Last Sunday we attended a sugar maple Fest at the Feindel Sugar Camp near Bascom. They served pancakes with hot maple syrup and sausages. The dessert was ice cream and cookies. It was a beautiful day and hundreds of people were there. It was a special treat and we were pleased to be able to take our neighbor, Dorothy Hostetler and Jing Wang, a young lady professor from Tianjin, China to the Fest.
The Feindels have been operating a sugar camp since 1958. Over 400 silver maple trees are tapped with one to four taps per tree, depending on the size. Two inch deep holes are drilled about 3 – 4 feet high and plastic spiles are forced into the holes. All the spiles from one tree are connected by tubing to all the other trees with larger and larger tubing. A vacuum pump eventually pulls the sap into a large holding tank at the cabin. More than a mile of tubing and about 2,000 new taps are required each year.
The Feindels have had a very poor season so far. It was consistently too cold in February, and it has become too warm in March. The flowering buds of silver maples are opening and that usually means the season is over. They may harvest one third the amount of a normal year. Their syrup is top quality and flavor. They sell their harvest at their home in Bascom, and they can be reached by calling 937-2675. Next year the Maple Sugar Fest will be at the Snavely Sugar Camp near Republic.
Some of the information about early techniques of the Indians and settlers came from a 1999 publication by the Dawes Arboretum.
Percy