Naturalist's Corner - Making Maple Sugar

Our column featuring guest naturalists returns just as spring is around the corner. Naturalist Jon Cowan is a hiker (among many things) I first met hiking with the Driftless Drifters hiking club. He is always generous in sharing his knowledge on the trail. Jon was one of my inspirations in pursuing my MN Master Naturalist certification. I am happy he can share his story of sugar maple making with all of you! 

I've always looked forward to this time of year when nature does her slow dance between cold freezing nights and rapid thaws during the day - the time that the Anishinabe call "Boiling Sap Moon". For it is this dance between freeze and thaw that pumps the Maple Tree sap from its roots upward through the trunk, to the limbs and branches which is the life-blood of the tree.  It provides the energy and nutrients to bud-out in the Spring and produce new life.  

I was a young park ranger naturalist many moons ago in Michigan. It was my job to care for the park's old growth Maple Forest, its Maple Sugaring operation, and its educational programs for the area schools. I spent long hours, often overnight, keeping watch over the sap boiling using flat pan evaporators and other up-to-date equipment. It takes 40 gallons of sap to produce one gallon of Maple Syrup and the pans must never boil dry.   

Mokuk basket made by an Anishinabe basket weaver.
The birch bark (wigwas) is inside out and the marks
of the birch bark need to be "flying upward."

It was about this time that I met "Crowfoot,"  a young Native American man, who was also interested in the park's Maple Syruping. His people had  boiled the sap not for syrup but for Maple Sugar. Sugar could be stored for years in Birch bark baskets called Mokuks whereas syrup would spoil over time. They used the sugar not only as flavoring but also to cure venison in place of salt which historically was a scarce commodity.   

I had studied botany and anthropology at the university and I remembered a paper written by Europeans that said it was the French traders who invented the boiling of the sap to make sugar because they possessed metal kettles for boiling and the native peoples did not. Therefore, they assumed, it would be impossible for them to boil enough sap before European contact. 

Crowfoot, of the Odawa people, knew from their oral tradition that they were the ones who introduced the art of Maple Sugar making to Europeans. Crowfoot had made many large pottery vessels in the style of his Woodland Culture that stretched back thousands of years before Europeans had ever heard of the so-called New World. He made his pottery of native clay collected along river banks, tempered by native minerals and fired in an open pit. 

We both arrived at an idea, "Why not make Maple Sugar using technologies and artifacts that would have been available to the Anishinabe prior to European contact?"  He agreed to sacrifice one of his hand made pottery vessels and added a "Sugaring boat, " which was a boat-shaped bowl with high prows at the long ends but shallow in the middle with a flat-bladed paddle that fit into its sides. Both the paddle and the sugaring boat were heirlooms of his grandmother's grandmother and were both carved from Sugar Maple.   

The boiling of the sap took many hours over an open pit fire but it eventually started to darken as the sugars became concentrated. It was during this time that Crowfoot told me many stories of his people, one of which had to do with making Maple Sugar. Here is his story. "One day during the boiling sap moon, when the earth was young, Nanabijou, the trickster god, was walking amongst the Maple trees. He noticed his people cutting the maple Trees and pure Maple Syrup pouring out of the trees. 'My people have become lazy and arrogant' said Nanabijou 'and do not appreciate the miracle of making this syrup and sugar. I will teach them!' So he climbed up the tallest Maple Tree and then "made Water" and from then on his people had to boil the "piss" out of it to make the Maple Sugar". 

We both had to make a guess as to when the syrup solution had enough "water" boiled off and was ready for sugaring. Crowfoot's elders told him that when it was ready he would know and then pour the syrup into the sugaring boat and vigorously paddle back and forth as if our lives depended on it . Within minutes the syrup began to crystalize into pure Maple Sugar. Afterwards, Crowfoot and I happily consumed the delicious results of our experiment.

After all, we did not want to offend Nanabijou by wasting any of it during the Boiling Sap Moon.

Here's a bit more about Jon: "I studied anthropology, botany and natural history at the University of Wisconsin- Madison and served my Naturalist Apprenticeship with Dr Jim Zimmerman obtaining a degree in History as well.  After university I immediately started work as a Ranger Naturalist at the newly formed Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. Subsequent to my work there, I worked at many more parks in Wisconsin, Michigan and Washington State. I owe the native people who lived near many of these parks for patiently offering me their wide range of knowledge and stories. To them, I will be forever grateful."

Photo of Jon Cowen in his Park Service uniform
studying Ethnobiology with members of the
Red Cliff band of Chippewa
near the Apostle Islands, circa 1978