A Sweet Idea

As winter comes to a close and everything starts to thaw, maple syrup season arrives at Chippewa Nature Center. At the end of February we start tapping sugar maple trees to get ready for school programs and weekend events. In March, groups of school kids learn how to identify maples and head into the Beech-Maple Woods armed with tools of the trade – measuring calipers, brace and bit, hook and spile, bucket and lid. Slowly but surely, more and more taps get put out during the month and the “plink-plink” sound of dripping sap can be heard through the sugarbush.

Tapping trees at Chippewa Nature Center is quite different than at almost all other maple syrup operations. In a commercial setting, producers aim to gather the maximum quantity of sap possible throughout the short season, therefore placing all their taps right away. Our process, however, is aimed squarely at education. It’s more important to us that each school group has a chance to identify and tap a maple tree so kids can experience something they just might remember for a lifetime!

Sap starts flowing when daytime temperatures rise above freezing and nights are cold. Michigan forester Mel Koelling writes on the Michigan Maple Syrup Association website, “Sap flow in maple tree… occurs when a rapid warming trend in early to mid-morning follows a cool (below freezing) night. Thus, the amount of sap produced varies from day to day. Normally, a single tap-hole produces from a quart to a gallon of sap per flow period (from a few hours to a day or more), with a seasonal accumulation of 10 to 12 gallons per tap-hole likely.”

With tapping throughout the season at CNC, it’s rare that we end up with 12 gallons of sap from an individual tap hole. The sap we do collect is gathered and taken to the Sugarhouse, where it takes about 40 gallons of sap to produce one gallon of maple syrup. In spite of our gradual tapping process, we did gather enough sap in 2009 to draw off 15 batches of syrup from our wood-fired evaporator, totaling nearly 41 gallons of pure maple syrup. That’s about 1,640 gallons of sap that was emptied from buckets on trees and hauled to the Sugarhouse!

You're all invited to join us each weekend in March to see CNC’s maple syrup operation in full swing. As we’re still in the process of renovating the Visitor Center we don’t have space to hold a pancake meal and will not have a Maple Syrup Day festival this year. Instead, we’ll offer special programs every Saturday throughout the entire month. The Sugarhouse will also be open from 1:30-4:30pm every Saturday and Sunday in March

Check out our calendar for full descriptions of programs throughout the maple syrup season. You won’t want to miss the following “sweet” programs: Maple Music Matinee (3/6), The Nature of Maple Syrup (3/13), Celebrating Spring in the Sugarbush (3/20), Sunset at the Sugarhouse (3/23 & 3/25), Maple Traditions (3/27) For more information about making maple syrup at home visit the Resources Section of our website or give us a call at 989.631.0830.