What does it take to make a gallon of maple syrup?

• Four maple trees, at least 40 years old, can yield enough sap in six weeks to produce one gallon of syrup
• Gathering crews walk the woods daily during February and March to collect the dripping sap and haul it to the sugar house.
• 40 gallons of raw sap are boiled down in an evaporator to produce a concentrated sweet sap water producing one gallon of syrup.
• A four foot long log, sawed, split, dried and burning in a raging fire for the evaporator to produce one gallon of syrup.
• The sugar-maker's entire family works to fire and operate the evaporator and then sterilize, filter, grade and pack each gallon of syrup.

In short, it takes a whole lot of hard work! But once you've tasted pure Wakarusa Maple Syrup, you know it's worth it. Visit the maple syrup camp behind Flick's Home Plate Restaurant located at 66402 SR 19 and see for yourself.

Or, stop by the maple syrup booth uptown and take home a gallon.

Sample the Sweet Life Today!

And, be sure not to miss the Maple Syrup Baking Contest at Shear Adventure on South Elkhart Street.

A Legend of the Beginning... 

There is an Iroquois Indian legend about the discovery of maple syrup by the wife of an Indiana Chief named "Woksis."

 As the legend goes, Woksis was going hunting one day early in March. He yanked his tomahawk from the tree where he had hurled it the night before, and went off for the day. The weather turned warm and the gash in the tree, a maple, dripped sap into a pot that happened to stand close to the trunk. 

Woksis's squaw, needing water in which to cook dinner, is supposed to have used the pot full of sap thinking that would save her a trip to get water. She tasted it and found it good--a little sweet, but not bad. So she used it for the cooking water.

Woksis, when he came home from hunting, was greeted by the smell of the sap that having been boiled down, was now syrup. So, says the legend, was the happy practice of making maple syrup inaugurated. 

The legend however maybe a little bit of colorful creation as Native Americans were at a considerable disadvantage in the methods available to them for producing syrup. The main problem was that containers were not available to them for boiling the sap down.

At the time of the discovery by Columbus of America, Native Americans were basically a "stone age" people with no metal working skills. Without metal containers for boiling the syrup they were only able to use wooden troughs or bowls and pottery made of clay. None of these containers lent themselves very well to boiling sap to syrup. 

The most common method that the Indian used in making syrup was with rocks. They would heat the rocks in an open fire. They picked the rocks up with sticks and placed the rocks in a wooden bowl full of sap. The rocks were hot enough to make the sap boil. As one rock cooled it was replaced with the freshly heated rock, thereby cooking the sap down into syrup. 

Maple syrup and honey were some of the most important substances in the Native Americans diet. In fact, it is estimated that maple syrup and honey comprised 12 percent of the diet of Native Americans.