Category: Archaeology

Bringing New Life to An Old Boiling Arch: Adding Flat Pan Boiling to Maple History at Hurry Hill Maple Farm and Museum

By Matthew M. Thomas

I was excited to recently learn of a great project to excavate, reconstruct, and reuse an open-air stone and earth boiling arch for supporting a flat pan for boiling maple sap.

Hurry Hill Maple Farm and Museum. Phot courtesy of Janet Woods.

With the help of the Boy Scouts from Erie County’s General McLane School District Troop 176 and Legacy Troop 73, Boy Scout J.C. Williams completed this project as part of his Eagle Badge at the sugarbush of the Hurry Hill Maple Farm and Museum near Edinboro, Pennsylvania.

Cover of Virginia Sorensen’s Newberry Medal winning book, Miracles on Maple Hill.

Hurry Hill Maple Farm and Museum is home to a great family-friendly maple museum that showcases the history of maple syrup but also tells the tale of the back story of Virginia Sorensen’s 1957 Newberry Award winning children’s book, Miracles on Maple Hill. In writing the book, Virginia Sorensen drew from her experiences living in northwest Pennsylvania. A significant portion of the story of Miracles on Maple Hill centers on activities in a rural sugarhouse and sugarbush as a family struggles to work together to overcome and deal with the father’s trauma of returning to home life after World War Two.

The sugar house at Hurry Hill Maple Farm and Museum. Photo by author.

But Hurry Hill Maple Farm and Museum is much more than a museum, which is open all year round. Hurry Hill also has a working sugarbush and outdoor maple history interpretive walking trail that are open for visitors during the sugaring season. The methods and appearance of the syrup making in the sugarhouse are fairly rustic and consistent with what one would see in much of the 20th century. In fact, construction of two sugarhouses on the farm date to 1930. Also on display are a series of large iron kettles suspended over an open fire to show how maple sugaring was done in the colonial era.

Demonstration of boiling sap in kettles at Hurry Hill Maple Farm. Photo courtesy of Eric Marendt.

On the annual Northwest Pennsylvania Maple Association Taste & Tour weekend, Scouts from the above-mentioned troops are busy demonstrating boiling sap in the iron kettles, explaining the history and process to interested visitors. It is common at demonstration sites teaching about the history of maple syrup to show the colonial era method of boiling in kettles. Luckily for the Scouts, who otherwise spend the weekend standing around in the cold and wind, they have protection from the elements in the form of an Adirondack shelter that was built at the site in 2013 as part of another Scout’s Eagle Badge project.

Historic image from 1927 of open air boiling on a flat pan and stone arch. Photo from Wisconsin Historical Society collections.

What was is usually missing from the presentation of the evolution of sap boiling technology is the use of a flat pan on a rudimentary platform and firebox, a boiling method that replaced the less efficient kettles but preceded the shift to formal commercial evaporators and the construction of sugar houses.

Historic image of use of a flat pans balanced on a stone and earth arch. Photo from Wisconsin Historical Society collections.

Thankfully, Hurry Hill Maple Farm’s owner Janet Woods, whose family has been working this sugarbush since 1939, realized that there was the long-forgotten remains of an old stone and earth arch perfectly situated in the sugarbush along the interpretive walking trail between the sugarhouse, the kettles and Adirondack shelter. From his previous years of telling about the kettle boiling process at the Taste & Tour weekend, senior scout J.C. Williams had an understanding of the role of the arch and flat pan in the evolution of boiling technology. Through conversations with Janet Woods, J.C. Williams was also aware of the presence of the remains of the old stone and earth arch and proposed that as his Eagle Badge project, the Scout Troop would dig it up and rebuild it in the fall and in the following spring use it to boil sap with a flat pan.

Eagle Scout J.C. Williams taking measurements of abandoned stone and earth arch before beginning excavation in October 2022. Photo courtesy of Janet Woods.

Plans were put into motion and the excavation and reconstruction work was caried out over the course of a weekend in October 2022, under the direction of J. C. Williams and with the assistance of a few of his fellow scouts, their fathers, and the troop leader Eric Marendt. Initially, measurements and notes were made of the size, shape and appearance to be able to rebuild the arch as close to those specifications as possible. After that, vegetation was cleared and the soil was removed from around the rocks and in the central firebox area.

Excavations in progress of stone arch by scouts and parents from Troops 73 and 176. Photo courtesy of Janet Woods.

Having visited Hurry Hill Maple Farm and Museum the previous summer, Janet Woods was aware of my interest in all things maple history but she also knew that I was an archaeologist who actually had first-hand experience with researching and documenting stone and earth boiling arches. Janet contacted me to tell me about their progress and ask for any advice or details of what to look for and expect. I spoke briefly with the scouts on the day of the excavation to give them an idea of what their digging might find.  I also sent them a handful of historic photos of similar arches in use as well as some images from archaeological investigations of arches.

Close up photo of reused scrap metal that was recovered from the excavations of the stone and earth arch. Photo courtesy of Janet Woods.

I also shared that from my research experience and from my knowledge of other excavations of similar arches, it was very common to find miscellaneous pieces of old heavy metal that were used as makeshift fire grates, supports and leveling pieces for the flat pan, and as walls to the interior fire ox and arch door. True to form, the scout’s excavation work uncovered an assortment of metal from old car parts, metal bar, and an old cross-cut saw blade.

Reconstructed stone and earth boiling arch with metal support beams and interior grate, ready for the sap to flow the flowing spring. Photo courtesy of Janet Woods.

After dismantling the arch, the scouts rebuilt it with an eye to making it a strong, functional and level support for a heavy metal flat pan that would be filled with maple sap for boiling the following spring. Repurposed old pieces of metal pipe and a grate were added for the fire box and as supports to slide the 3 1/2 foot by 4 /1/2 foot flat pan on and off the fire.

 

 

 

As an archaeologist I have had the priveledge of finding and recording dozens of similar stone arches and have read reports of similar investigations of abandoned arches, some bult for small 2 x 3 flat pans and other built for pans possibly as large as 5 x 12 feet.

Two photos of the reconstructed arch and flat pan in operation. Note the Adirondack shelter built by the scout troop in 2013 in the back of the photo on the right. Photos courtesy of Eric Marendt.
View of the reconstructed arch in use with flat pan evaporating sap at Hurry Hill Maple Farm. Photo courtesy of Janet Woods.

In the case of this project, it was especially enjoyable for me to see that not only were these scouts able to learn something about arch technology and use from its excavation, but in the spirit of experimental archaeology, that they were going to learn even more by taking it to the next two steps of rebuilding and reusing the arch. It is true that there are still many backyard sugarmakers that use a small flat pan like was used here, but most folks build cinderblock arches or use some other modern materials.

Eagle Scout J.C. Williams on left, with fellow scout and parents at work reconstructing the stone and earth arch in October 2022. Note the size of the stones that were used and reset in the arch. Photo courtesy of Jante Woods.

It is exceedingly rare today to find anyone still building a stone and earth arch. With the help of a knowledgeable volunteer at Hurry Hill Maple Farm, the scouts had a bonus of a geology lesson, when Kirk Johnson, himself an Eagle Scout 55 years ago, explained the glacial significance and thermal properties of the large glacial erratic granite boulders that had been selected and used in the original build of the arch.

Historic image from 1957 of sap boiling n a flat pan on stone arch. Photo from Wisconsin Historical Society collections.

Like the many hundreds and thousands of families that constructed arches their sugarbushes from the stones and left over metal at their disposal, these scouts had the real experience of learning how to best, level the pan and boil in a stone arch, not to mention how to get the best fire and airflow. If one thing is true, scouts love a reason to play with fire and you can bet that by the end of the weekend, these scouts had a pretty strong boil going from the 50 gallons they collected from pails on nearby trees.

With the arrival of the 2023 maple season and the annual Taste & Tour weekend at Hurry Hill Maple Farm, the scouts were able to put their work to the test and add the reconstructed stone arch and flat pan to the maple history tour and educational program. In mid-March, six scouts camped out in the snow along side the Adirondack shelter, kettles, and flat pan with additional scouts from the troop joining during the day to help with the tour, keeping the fires burning and the steam rising.

Groups shot of the flat pan and arch in use with scouts and parents from Troops 73 and 176 with Janet Woods on far right. Photo courtesy of Janet Woods.

Many maple education programs suffer from an over-emphasis on romanticized presentations of the early history of maple syrup and sugar making technology, such as showing the use of kettles but leaving out flat pans. In fact, one could argue that the use of flat pans and stone arches like the one rebuilt at Hurry Hill Maple Farm was even more extensive in numbers and spread and had a much greater economic importance than the era and use of iron kettles. As a promoter and sometimes critic of the telling of maple history, what made me happy with this story, besides simply seeing a younger generation show interest in maple syrup history, was that Hurry Hill Maple Farm was now able to tell and show visitors a more complete history of the changes and improvements to maple syrup technology. What was a great maple history museum and very good maple education program is only that much better.

Special thanks to Janet Woods, Eric Marendt, and the scouts from Troops 73 and 176 for sharing their story and photos of this project and letting us all enjoy this experience.

Large Scale Maple Syrup Production with the Horse Shoe Forestry Company

The unique story of the turn of the century maple syrup operation carried out by Abbot Augustus Low and his Horse Shoe Forestry Company in the forests of New York’s Adirondacks Mountains is near and dear to my heart and one I love to share. It also happens to be the focus of my latest contribution to the September 2022 edition of the Maple Syrup Digest (Vol. 61, no. 3). For those that may not be familiar with  the Maple Syrup Digest, it is the official quarterly publication of the North American Maple Syrup Council.  I even managed to snag the cover image of this issue of the Maple Syrup Digest, a first for me! You can read the article at this link or by clinking on the accompanying image.

Those of you looking for even more detail and dozens of maps and images related to the history of the Horse Shoe Forestry Company should check out my second book, A Sugarbush Like None Other: Adirondack Maple Syrup and the Horseshoe Forestry Company, available for purchase online at eBay.

 

 

Archaeological Investigations of Old Sugaring Site in Minnesota

The spring 2020 edition of the Minnesota Archaeological Society newsletter features an article titled Boiling Arch Archaeology by Nicole Foss. This article, available here, describes recent archaeological investigations that documented the remains of two u-shaped boiling arches in Interstate State Park, near the St. Croix River and Taylors Falls, Minnesota.

One arch was constructed of bermed earth, stone, and brick while the other, probably later arch, was built poured concrete with three walls and a concrete floor. Historical research and archaeological investigations determined that the arches were probably open air boiling sites used by local syrup makers of European-American descent in the late 1800s to mid-1900s.

Archaeologist have been recording the remains of former maple sugaring and syrup making sites in the upper midwest for the last 40 years, although it is only in the last 20 years that there has been an increase in recognizing and documenting boiling arches as important features of many sugaring sites of both Euro-American and Native American sugarmakers. The report of finding these two arches is a valuable contribution to the historic archaeological record in Minnesota.

In addition to providing permission to share the newsletter article here, site investigators Jacob Foss, Nicole Foss, and David Radford were kind enough to share a few additional photographs from the site.

Photograph of earth and stone u-shaped boiling arch at Hobb’s Woods maple sugaring site, Interstate State Park, Minnesota.
Photograph of the remains of the concrete U-shaped boiling arch at the Hobb’s Woods maple sugaring site in Interstate State Park, Minnesota.
Photograph of a metal maple sugaring spout found at the Hobb’s Woods maple sugaring site at Interstate State Park, Minnesota.

Recent Publications in Maple Syrup History

I want to share two relatively recent scholarly publications on maple syrup history topics that might interest readers of this website. One is a report of archaeological investigations in northern Michigan and the other looks at the formation and role of cooperative organizations in the modernization of the Quebec maple industry.

First up is an article published in 2018 in the journal Historical Archaeology titled “Sucreries and Ziizbaakdokaanan: Racialization, Indigenous Creolization, and the Archaeology of Maple-Sugar Camps in Northern Michigan.”  Written by John G. Franzen, Terrance J. Martin, and Eric C. Drake, the article presents the results of archaeological survey and excavations at four sites believed to have been the location of maple sugaring camps dating from the late 1700s to the late 1800s. In addition to presenting the results of their investigations, the rest of the article focuses on understanding what the archaeological remains tell us about sugaring in the past within the context of maple producers that were navigating and negotiating their way through two or more social, ethnic, and cultural communities, namely Euro-American and indigenous Anishinabe (Chippewa/Ojibwe).

Next up is a historical study by Dr. Brigit Ramsingh looking at the evolution of early twentieth century marketing with the maple syrup industry in Quebec that was presented at the  Dublin Gastronomy Symposium in 2018. Titled Liquid Gold: Tapping into the Power Dynamics of Maple Syrup Supply Chains, the article considers the early development, role, and relative influence of cooperative marketing and sales in bringing the Quebec maple sugar and syrup industry into the position of dominance it enjoys today.

Ramsingh is a historian and Senior Lecturer in Food Safety Management at the Central University of Lancashire in the UK who is the process of expanding the research presented in this article for an even wider look at the influence of co-ops across the maple syrup region in both Canada and the United States.

Digging into Maple Syrup’s Past at Michigan State University

As an archaeologist by training, I am always keeping my eyes and ears open for new reports and research on maple history with a particular archaeological bend to it. One such project that recently popped up and caught my attention is from a group of archaeology graduate students at Michigan State University.  Through their efforts to learn about and protect interesting and important archaeological remains on the Michigan State University campus the Campus Archaeology Program discovered that the archaeological remains of a long since demolished sugar house were hiding in the Sanford Woodlot right on campus.

Like most curious archaeologists, these archaeology students wanted to know more about their discovery and soon learned that for many decades of the 20th century, the Michigan State Forestry Department supported a maple syrup research and demonstration program. Like most maple syrup research programs, this included a working sugarbush and sugar house. Archival research revealed that the first sugar house was built around 1915 and was used for approximately ten years before being lost to a fire. A replacement sugar house was built on the same site and was used through the 1930s to the 1960s at which time the structure was torn down.

Photo of MSU Forestry Department sugar house, taken around 1934. [From MSU CAP blog post] Photo Source
What remains of the sugar house location are now an archaeological site that has caught the interest of the Campus Archaeology Program. Under the direction of archaeology doctoral students Jack Biggs and Jeff Painter, the CAP intends to investigate and map the sugar house remains in greater detail and maybe even do a little archaeological excavation.

I’ve always been interested in the history of the maple syrup program at MSU with a particular attention to the work of Forestry Professor Putnam Robbins. “Put” Robbins came through the MSU Forestry program as a student in the 1940s, where he researched and wrote his 1948 Master’s Thesis on the effects of tapping location on maple sap flow, before becoming an MSU Extension Forester. As an Extension Forester in the Forestry Department he was encouraged to continue his interest and applied research with the maple industry.

MSU Forestry Professor Putnam Robbins demonstrating the insertion of a paraformaldehyde tablet in maple tree tap hole.

My interest in Robbins centers around the history of work he did with Robert Costilow, an MSU campus microbiologist, to develop a tablet to be inserted into the tapholes of maple trees with the idea that the anti-microbial effects of paraformaldehyde, its active ingredient, would increase the volume and prolong the flow of maple sap during the tapping season. Known as the PF tablet, the tablets did that job quite well but it was discovered that this chemical application also were harmful to the long-term health of the maple trees and it was subsequently banned for use in the maple syrup industry in the US and Canada in the 1990s.

Of course, the PF tablet history does not directly play into the sorts of things that the archaeologist might learn from their investigations of the remains of the MSU sugar house, but it goes to show that the MSU forestry department and maple syrup program made significant contributions to the history of the maple industry. Who knows, maybe the detailed look into the history of this program coupled with on the ground archaeological investigations of the Campus Archaeology Program will expand our knowledge and appreciation even further.  I, for one, am glad that they are looking and giving it the attention it deserves and will be following their progress reports on their blog and the Campus Archaeology Program Facebook page.

 

UPDATE –

Research by the Michigan State University Campus Archaeology Program continues to learn more about the history and role of the sugarhouse in the campus’ Sanford Woodlot.  See their November 7, 2018 blog post for an update on their progress.

Things Are Not Always What They Seem

As someone with a strong interest in the history and anthropological study of Native American resource and land use, in particularly maple sugaring, there is one particular photograph that has always interested me. I first saw this photo in Thomas Vennum, Jr.’s Wild Rice and the Ojibway People. Published by the Minnesota Historical Society in 1988, Vennum, then an anthropologist with the Smithsonian Institution’s Office of Folklife Programs, included the photo in a section of his book where he was describing the layout, activities and technology in use at the various Native American wild rice camps he visited across Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.

Photo of Joe Pete and wife parching wild rice in maple sugaring flat pan. Photo originally appears in Thomas Vennum Jr.’s book, Wild Rice and the Ojibway People.”

The photo was taken on the Reservation of the Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians by Robert E. Ritzenthaler of the Milwaukee Public Museum during field work in the late summer of 1941.  In the photo Joe Pete and his wife are shown parching wild rice in a large flat rectangular sheet metal pan over a wood fire.  The pan looks to be about three feet by six feet in dimension with six inch deep sides, rolled rim at the top and two sets of handles on each side. As the caption in Vennum’s book notes “Joe Pete and his wife parching rice at Lac Vieux Desert, Wisconsin, 1941; the use of a rectangular metal trough and broom is unusual.” Instead, it was customary to use a kettle or kettle like metal washtub to parch rice. After harvesting wild rice by canoe from shallow lakes and rivers in the region, the rice was taken to nearby ricing camps or brought home to dry, parch, thresh, and winnow.  Parching was historically carried out by heating and drying the rice grains in a large kettle over a fire, constantly stirring to avoid scorching or burning, such as shown in the photo below.

Ojibwe woman parching wild rice in metal tub with wooden paddle. Source: http://www.nmai.si.edu/environment/img/03/03_03/full/08_E97_32W_p38_full.jpg

The novelty of using the unusual metal trough for parching rice is what caught Vennum’s eye in examining the photo. What he did not seem to realize at the time was that he was looking at a photo of Mr. and Mrs. Pete putting a maple sugaring flat pan to use as a wild rice parching kettle. While at first glance, it might seem an unusual departure from the traditional kettle or tub, it makes perfect sense and is actually a rather ingenious re-use of technology already on hand. Alongside collecting wild rice, making maple sugar and maple syrup, was and still is, one of the important seasonal gathering activities carried out every year in the Lac Vieux Desert community. Located on the north shore of Lac Vieux Desert in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, this Ojibwe community has occupied this village site for over two centuries. During that time tribal members established many maple sugaring camps throughout the maple woodlands surrounding the old village known as Katekitgon.

With Euro-American settlement, land cessions treaties, and other changes in land ownership, control of much of the Lac Vieux Desert territory was lost, with a great deal of the lands closest to the traditional village site becoming lands of the Ottawa National Forest.  In 2001 I was working as an archaeological field technician for the Ottawa National Forest and was fortunate be tasked with conducting a re-survey of a large parcel of National Forest land adjacent to the lands of the old village in anticipation of a land exchange where these traditional lands would be returned to tribal ownership and control. Past archaeological surveys of the area had identified a wide variety of historic sites and activity areas associated with the village most notably dozens of maple sugaring sites. But in tromping through the woods, describing, mapping and photographing what I found, one particular site really got me excited. It was a sugaring camp like many others with a scatter of rusted, re-used metal food cans left behind from collecting sap at the maple trees and the nearly disintegrated remains of a stone and earthen bermed boiling arch.

What made this site different and gave me goose bumps that day was the appearance of a large rectangular metal trough with two sets of handles on each side. I knew that trough! That was the same trough that I had looked at so many times before used for parching wild rice in the photograph in Vennum’s book.

Metal flat pan recorded at abandoned Lac Vieux Desert maple sugaring camp on the Ottawa National Forest in the summer of 2001. (photo by author).

Well, at least it “looked” just like that trough and the Lac Vieux Desert context of both the trough in the photo and the maple sugaring flat pan found at the sugaring camp made it absolutely plausible and I would argue even probable that they were the very same pan. Making finds likes this and connecting what would seem like rather disparate dots are part the fun of archaeological and historical discovery. Moreover, this was a great reminder of the adaptability of people and the fact that sometimes there is more than what meets the eye and things are not always what they seem.

Sugarbush Archaeology

One interesting and important way to understand and tell the story of the history of maple sugaring is through the remains of past sugaring operations. Recording and investigating these sites and artifacts from maple sugaring’s past falls into the realm of what I like to call sugarbush archaeology.

For many folks when the idea of archaeology is brought up they immediately think of studying past human behavior before the time of written records, and that certainly covers a lot of the focus of archaeology. However, archaeology is not solely limited to the pre-writing segment of human history and also includes consideration of our material remains from more recent periods in time.

Just about everyone that has spent any time in or around a sugarbush which has been in use for a few generations or more is probably aware of the location of an old sugarhouse or boiling camp. If it is fairly recently retired or abandoned, it may be a standing ruin or relic, but if it was left many more years ago, chances are it has been reduced to a simple scatter of twisted metal, an irregular foundation or collections of stones, or a mounded patch of ground in the woods. Those remains are now artifacts and features of an archaeological site. The heritage of sugarmakers is certainly preserved in things like the photographs and collections of antiques and ephemera that line the wall of many sugar houses. But there are other artifacts, sometimes very big artifacts, of maple sugaring that we can also preserve and learn from.

While there are some written records describing early maple sugaring activities, the further one goes back in time, the fewer and fewer records there are and what is written is generally lacking in detail or description. For example, in the western Great Lakes region in earlier times when Euro-Americans were still settling the land and access to use of the woods was more open and with fewer limits, it was not uncommon to set up a sugarbush and boiling camp where ever it was deemed best. This may have been private land, it may have been unclaimed public land, it may have been tribal land or even tax forfeiture land.

Photo of nested kettles in abandoned Native American sugaring camp.

Today, archaeologists find a variety of sites in the forest that mark the past location of all sorts and scales of maple sugaring, from the simplest boiling camp that may have been a single kettle used for one season to the former location of a sugarhouse that contained multiple evaporator where thousands of gallons of syrup were made each season.

Most of the work being done that identifies maple sugaring archaeological sites happens on federal, tribal, state, and county lands where there are rules in place directing land managers to look for archaeological and historic sites like these and take those places into account when managing those lands. But maple sugaring sites are all over, and there are undoubtedly many many times more sites on private lands and in current sugarbushes that any of these public lands.

Photo of the unloading ramp and sugarhouse at the Grand Island sugarbush shortly after abandonment.

I’ve worked for many years as a field archaeologist in the woods of northern Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota and have recorded dozens and dozens of maple sugaring sites. Most of these sites were the remains of small short lived boiling camps with simple stone and earthen arches and an associated scatter of metal artifacts.  But every now and then there was an opportunity to work with a more substantial site. For example one interesting site was the remains of the Cleveland Cliffs Mining Company’s sugarbush on land now managed by the Hiawatha National Forest on Grand Island in Lake Superior off the shore of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

 

Photograph of the remains of the sugar house on Grand Island from east side of site looking west.
Map of archaeological remains of Grand Island sugaring camp.

The company operated a commercial sugaring operation for xx years before they closed shop and abandoned everything in place in 19xx. Unlike a lot of sugarhouses, when they closed they just walked away and essentially left the evaporators and equipment behind. I was able to photograph and map what was left of the decaying sugar house which was presented in a 2003 article in the Michigan Academician.

Other researchers have also looked at maple history from the lens of the archaeological record, with two notable publications being Keener, Gordon and Nye’s 2010 article on the Petticrew-Taylor Farmstead in Ohio and David Babson’s 2011 doctoral dissertation on late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century sugaring sites in Lewis County, New York.

While the study of abandoned commercial sugaring sites is fascinating, a great deal of my attention has been spent working on identifying and understanding the remains of sugaring activities associated with Ojibwe and Potowatomi Native American communities from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Most people who are less familiar with those Indian communities, including sugarmakers from New England, are often a surprised to learn that maple sugaring continues to be an important part of the seasonal activities of Indian people into the twentieth century. This is in part a legacy of the Indian maple production being a subsistence activity for family and community consumption and largely operating outside of the mainstream  realities the mainstream market economy. It is also a relic of a government assimilation policy that discouraged Indian people from continuing their traditional gathering activities, often forcing Indian people to quietly carry out their sugaring.

Map of remains of Native American boiling arch at McCord Indian Village in northern Wisconsin.

While working as an archaeologist for the Lac du Flambeau Ojibwe Band in northern Wisconsin we recorded dozens of abandoned sugaring camps both on and off the reservation. A great deal of this research was published in an article in 2001 in the Wisconsin Archeologist which presented an overview of the kinds of sites we were finding and the material remain left behind like metal cans, pails, birch bark containers, and metal and wood taps for sap collection as well as kettles, chains, and hooks for boiling sap.

Map of remains of storage structure and associated artifact scatter at Lac du Flambeau sugar camp LDF-081.

 

Learning as much as we could at the sites at Lac du Flambeau was a springboard to being asked to help record and interpret many more Native American sugaring sites in northern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Much of that work was presented in a 2005 article in the Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology about the remains of tell-tale U-shaped boiling arches at known and suspected Native American communities.  Both of these articles were largely aimed at helping the practitioners of professional field archaeology better recognize and appreciate this often overlook and misunderstood cultural resource.

Our limited understanding of the history of Indian sugaring has been an important reasons and motivation for me to focus on recording and interpreting these sites. There are many of non-Indian archaeological remains of sugaring to investigate as well; however, the supporting documentation and historical information related to those sites is a bit more robust. Also because many of the Euro-American sugaring sites were established on lands that continue to be held in private ownership, often as sugarbushes to this day, they may be in a better position to be preserved and protected.

When talking about the early years of maple sugaring in North American, curious and knowledgeable people invariably bring up the question of who made maple sugar first, Native peoples or the Euro-Americans and Euro-Canadians that came to the new world. That’s a very interesting question and one that archaeology should be able to help answer. Wading into the origins debate, as I refer to it, is a curious topic and not unlike opening up a political can of worms.  People are very sure of what they have come to believe is the truth, regardless of what evidence they are presented. However, I will save my thoughts on that topic for the moment and dedicate another post to tackling that in the future.

What is important to consider and appreciate in looking at and managing a stand of maple trees, be it a current or past sugarbush and on private or public lands is that the the land has a story to tell. Often times this story is not recorded any where else and may no longer even remain in the minds and memories of those that worked those woods. What looks like trash or ruins does have meaning if you look at it from a certain light. Likewise the old roads, fence lines, scarred trees, and signs of different cutting histories and forest management are part of the unwritten record of sugarbush archaeology. Where we can we should take the time to consider, document, learn from and maybe even preserve what remains of the past years of sugaring.

 

REFERENCES  CITED

Babson, David W., “Sweet Spring: The Development and Meaning of Maple Syrup Production at Fort Drum, New York.” (doctoral dissertation, Syracuse University, 2011).

Keener, Craig S, Stephen C Gordon, and Kevin Nye, “Uncovering a Mid-Nineteenth Century Maple Sugar Camp and Stone Furnace at the Petticrew-Taylor Farmstead in Southwest Ohio.” Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 35, no. 2 (2010) 133-166.

Thomas, Matthew M., “The Archaeology of Great Lakes Native American Maple Sugar Production in the Reservation Era.” The Wisconsin Archeologist 82, no. 1 (2001) 75-102.

Thomas, Matthew M. and Janet Silbernagel, “The Evolution of a Maple Sugaring Landscape on Lake Superior’s Grand Island.” The Michigan Academician 35, no. 2 (2003) 135-158.

Thomas, Matthew M., “Historic American Indian Maple Sugar and Syrup Production Boiling Arches in Michigan and Wisconsin.” Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 30, no. 2(2005) 299-326.