Sugaring Time
In the fall of 2010 our little family of three moved to Jericho, Vermont, a rural town in the foothills of the Green Mountains. We all needed a change from city life, desperate for some wild nature to roam in and explore.
A neighbor welcomed us, somewhat sardonically, to the “winter wonderland” of Jericho. She was not fond of the constant snow for which the town was famous. Indeed, Snowflake Bentley, who first discovered that no two snowflakes are alike, had made his home there. He had plenty of material to work with.
We chose to embrace winter and all it had to offer, including the late-season tradition of sugaring. Being new to the craft, we studied up on it, asked the advice of other people who were doing it, and acquired the necessary tools. Some taps, a few buckets, and a drill bit of just the right size. We had a camping stove that would suffice as our boiling place on the back porch.
In late February, we donned snowshoes and trudged through two-plus feet of powdery snow into our wooded dell. We brought our newly-acquired tools and set to work drilling the holes, hammering in the taps, and hanging the metal buckets.
March 2011 offered a snowy beginning to our sugaring operation.
Then we waited. Waited for a cold night followed by a warm, sunny day, the classic conditions for sap to flow.
And flow it did. Plink, plink, plink into the metal buckets — what a thrill! We loved hearing the sound, and we loved snowshoeing from tree to tree to pour the sap from the metal buckets into a plastic pail to bring up to the porch.
We boiled the sap in a large stainless steel pot on the camp stove. It was a tedious process, sometimes lasting long into the night. But we had a grand time, and we made some delicious syrup, ranging in color from golden to dark brown, as the season changed. Our son enjoyed it on his oatmeal, or more accurately, he tolerated a little bit of oatmeal in his large bowl of maple syrup. So, what we produced — a dozen pints — didn’t last long, but it sure was sweet while it lasted.
The color of our syrup darkened as the season went on.
As the winters went on, we graduated to a more powerful gas stove for the porch, and continued to tap those 12 trees, continued to boil into the night. The boy grew up and moved away, and our dozen or so pints lasted much longer.
Other things changed, too. The winters were less and less snowy, so we didn’t often need snowshoes. The sap came early sometimes, in January instead of February or March, and we were unprepared. We missed the first run more than once.
In March 2017, the ground was bare of snow.
Our little world of change, in our charming wooded dell, mirrored what was and is happening throughout New England and elsewhere in the sugaring world.
While the tradition has long been to start tapping in early March, and to gather sap and boil through April, these days March marks the end of the season, rather than its beginning. We are seeing sugar makers tapping their trees in December to be prepared for when the sap first starts running — often, now, near the turn of the year. This year, the sap was running by early January.
Our backyard sugaring enterprise has ended. We missed the run too many times, the boy who consumed the product is now grown and gone, and we are preparing to downsize and sell the property. Maybe the new owner will take up the hobby, or maybe the dozen trees we loved and drew sweetness from will get a rest for a while.
The changes in our backyard sugaring tradition are a small-scale example of those happening elsewhere. The world of commercial maple sugar production is dramatically different from what it was even 20 years ago. The Branon family of northern Vermont owns a sugarbush on 4,500 acres, with 90,000 taps connected to a huge sugarhouse by miles of plastic tubing. The Branons were pulling the sap out of the woods in early January this year, using sophisticated vacuum systems and reverse-osmosis technologies to reduce the water content before boiling.
In a 2007 news story, Tom Branon said: “It’s totally changed. … In the ’50s, ’60s and even ’70s we tapped by hand and used buckets, gathering by hand and using horse-drawn sleighs with wood fired evaporators.” And Cecile Branon said about the changing climate: “I can remember when we were first married, March was when you started tapping. …Now, we’re tapping in January.”
Tom and Cecile Branon remember sugaring techniques of times past. Photo © Corey Hendrickson
The changing climate is impacting the maple sugaring tradition and industry in a variety of ways. Sugarmakers are adapting, and researchers are working to better understand what the future might bring.
The University of Vermont’s Mark Isselhardt studies trends in maple production. Photo © Tim Perkins, University of Vermont
Scientists throughout the region are investigating a number of questions.
Given the speed with which forest land is sold to sugar makers, who are willing to pay a premium price, is forest land becoming less available for other uses such as timber production, recreation, or wilderness?
If so, is this a bad thing, or can we celebrate that sugaring is keeping forests as forests?
Might the use of red maple and other sap-producing species help to increase the diversity and resiliency of sugar-producing forests?
How is wildlife affected by the miles of tubing in these woods? Can large mammals like moose and deer travel through the woods as needed?
In a modern sugarbush, miles of tubing and high-tech vacuum systems deliver the sap to the boiling facility. Photo © Corey Hendrickson
The research is inconclusive on many of these topics. And there are so many other questions to ponder.
Meanwhile, I’m going to have some sugar on snow. If I can find any snow.
Liz Thompson is an independent ecologist from Vermont who serves on the steering committee for WWF&C, the board of Northeast Wilderness Trust, and the editorial board of this publication. She is convening a group to plan the 2025 Wildlands and Old Growth Conference.