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The
process of tapping maple trees and cooking the sap
originated with the Native Americans. Nobody knows just
how they discovered that maple sap would make a sweet
food, but it’s likely that, as some of their legends
indicate, they learned from the animals. Red squirrels
have been known to deliberately “tap” sugar maples (and
yes, they do seem to know one kind of maple from
another!) and then come back later to eat the sugar that
concentrates on the bark when the dripping sap
evaporates.
What we
do know is that the Native Americans made sugar during
the Sugar Moon (Iskigamizige), and that it was a festive
time of socializing after the long winter. They used a
combination technique of freezing the sap and boiling it
in birch bark containers. By discarding the ice, they
could pre-concentrate the sugars and limit the
labor-intensive boiling process.
Although sugaring had been described in Europe as early
as the 16th century, the first reported
eye-witness account was from Chrestien LeClerq, who
wrote in 1676 that the Indians of the Gaspé made maple
sugar “into little loaves which are sent to France as a
curiosity.”
European settlers introduced metal kettles to the
process as early as the late 1600’s, speeding up the
boiling and improving the quality of the oldest
agricultural product to be exported from America to
Europe. They used the batch method: a single kettle
over an open fire, adding sap continually until the
batch was finished. This resulted in a very dark, smoky
syrup. Later, the use of multiple kettles improved the
quality of the syrup. Around 1860, flat pans were
introduced.
At the
time of the American Revolution, maple syrup began to be
something of a political issue: by producing maple
sugar (or buying it from their neighbors), Americans
could avoid the tariff imposed by Great Britain for cane
sugar from the West Indies. This became even more
important during the Civil War—people in the North were
not eager to support an industry (sugar plantations)
that relied on slave labor. In 1864, the peak year of
maple syrup/sugar production, 4˝ million gallons of
syrup and 40 million pounds of maple sugar were produced
(compared to around 1˝ million gallons of syrup and a
few thousand pounds of sugar today).
The
March 26, 1897 issue of the Midland Sun reported: “The
prices received for both maple sugar and syrup have not
been lessened for many years, and the farmer who is so
fortunate as to possess a tract of maple timber often
finds that several weeks’ labor in the sugar bush brings
in larger net returns than he receives from the sale of
his cereal crops.”
On
April 1, 1920, the Midland Republican noted: “Aaron
Nofzinger, Edwin and Daniel Wise are running a
full-fledged maple sugar bush. It is on Mr. Bedor’s farm
near Crane. They have 250 trees tapped and the
equipment is up to date: metal spouts, tin buckets,
large steam evaporating pan, no fire or smoke comes in
contact with the syrup.”
The
Chippewa Nature Center’s sugarhouse was originally a
family home built by Nicholas C. Shoff in Isabella
Township, west of Clare. It was donated to CNC in 1978
by Warren McQuire of Farwell and reconstructed as a
sugarhouse at that time. It sits on land known to have
seen Native American occupation in the Late Woodland
Period (~AD 1200). Archaeological evidence indicates
the site was used as a winter base camp. The high
density of ceramic materials, coupled with the presence
of fire-cracked rock, lend credence to the speculation
that it may have been used, even then, for sugar
processing.
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