In January of this year, Down East Books released a new book by John Hodgkins titled Boiling Off: The Story of Maple Sugaring in Maine. As the name implies, the book focuses on the often-overlooked place of Maine in the North American maple syrup industry. Hodgkins brings together skill as a writer with previous book and magazine articles to his credit, and his experience as a sugarmaker, one who has made award winning syrup and served two terms as the president of the Maine Maple Syrup Producers Association, to helps us better understand recent Maine maple history and shed some light on the people that made it possible.
The book has four main themes that all interrelate and for which Hodgkins was and is intimately familiar. These are the origins and evolution of Hodgkins own maple syrup business, the development and events of the Maine Maple Producers Association, the role and impact of constantly improving new technology in the maple industry, and the recent growth and influence of the State of Maine, and especially Somerset County, in the larger story of North American maple syrup.
Hodgkins’ handling of all of these themes is interesting and informative, especially coming from the experiences of someone that was there first-hand. For example, Hodgkins shares how his own thinking and use of paraformaldehyde pellets changed from one of eager support to concern and abandonment in light of changing public opinion, personal observations, and scientific evidence of the harm to trees. I especially appreciated how Hodgkins presented his personal experiences and technological change in his sugarbush within the context of how such changes and innovations were being introduced and adopted in Maine and the greater maple industry.
Although it is the most recent part of the Maine maple story, as a historian I was very glad to see the book devote a significant portion to the expansion of Maine syrup production. Hodgkins traces the growth of Maine maple from being a sleepy maple syrup backwater making 8,000 gallons a year and lagging in ninth place among maple producing states, to producing three quarters of a million gallons of syrup and becoming the third most productive maple syrup state in the course of 30 short years. A significant part of that story is centered on the unique situation in the northwestern part of the state, adjacent to Quebec, where there is a long history of Quebeckers who live in Canada and travel across the border to Maine to lease and operate sugarbushes on largely privately held timber company lands. Producing mostly bulk syrup sold to American buyers, these producers in Somerset County have experienced exponential growth with many now running 30,000 to 80,000 taps operations making Somerset county the most productive county in the US.
I was also glad to see a number of pages dedicated to the origins and activities of the Maine Maple Producers Association. It is great to see an accounting of how this organization brought the Maine Maple Sunday to life and how they have adjusted to the changes over time in the make-up of their membership and importance of different regions in the state. It is a personal wish of mine that more state and provincial maple organizations would make an effort to research and write their histories and take advantage of preserving the memories and institutional knowledge of their older and long-standing members.
The book is written in an easy to read, sometimes folksy tone and it is Hodgkins’ story to tell, so he freely interjects his own opinions and thoughts on any number of topics and themes outlined above. It is very Maine-centric, and should make no apologies for it, after all, as the title says, that is the point. Hodgkins is a good story teller, if a bit repetitive in his telling. Many of the chapters read as if they were written as stand-alone columns or journal entries, which may explain the jumping back and forth between a first-person story-telling narrative and a third person journalistic narrative.
At 215 pages in length, the book is a rich first-hand description written from Hodgkins personal memory of events since the 1960s. From a historical perspective, the book is largely focused on the last 60 years, which is one of its strengths and which is an especially interesting time in the history of Maine maple syrup production. I highly recommend this book for those looking to learn more about Maine’s growing place in the North American maple industry and for a personal account of the ebbs and flows of the realities of being a mid-size to smaller commercial maple syrup producer in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
The book can be purchased in paperback for $19.95, plus shipping, through various online outlets like Barnes and Noble or Amazon.com. It is also available as a Kindle edition.