Dr. Susan Deborah Wade – Courtesy Susan Deborah Wade.
Dr. Susan Deborah Wade is a historian who recently completed a doctoral dissertation at the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee titled, “Ojibwe Women and Maple Sugar Production in Anishinaabewakiing and the Red River Region, 1670-1873”. Maple Syrup History website creator Matthew Thomas (MT) had the recent pleasure of conducting the following email interview with Dr. Wade (SDW) to learn more about her interesting and important work and share it with interested readers.
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MT: Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions and share your research with the readers of my website. It is always a pleasure to discover new and interesting scholarship on topics related to maple history. With my own background in ethnohistory and Indigenous studies, I am especially excited to read and share your work with the maple history community. Can you give us a quick summary of what your dissertation is about and what you have learned?
SDW: My dissertation focuses on Indigenous women and an important food product – maple sugar. This foodstuff was used as medicine, food, trade good, and as a gift. The setting for this work is Anishinaabewakiing, a large region that is eventually divided by an international border by the British and Americans in 1783 (editor’s note: the Red River region encompasses portions of today’s Manitoba, Ontario, North Dakota, and Minnesota). Fur trade companies and settlers on both sides of this border used maple sugar as a provision for workers, and as a sweetener in place of hard to get and expensive cane sugar. Maple sugar was traded by Indigenous women for trade goods and in turn collected and auctioned by fur trade companies to increase their profits. As settlers moved into the Great Lakes region, land use changed. For example, treaties reduced the amount of land the Anishinaabeg had to continue producing maple sugar and lumber companies clear cut forests.
Map showing territory of Anishinaabe peoples in United States and Canada. Source – https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/anishinaabe#
MT: The title of your doctoral dissertation contains many interesting clues to what one can expect to encounter in its reading. Can you tell us more about the choices and importance of the different components in the title of your dissertation? Such as your reason for choosing these particular start and end dates, why the Red River region, or the meaning of the word Anishinaabewakiing?
Map showing range of acer negundo, aka Manitoba Maple or Boxelder. Note overlap of range of acer negundo with earlier map of Anishinaabe territory. Their intersection is an area of focus in Dr. Wade’s research. Source – http://dendro.cnre.vt.edu/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=3
SDW: I expanded on my master’s thesis which focused on maple sugar production by Indigenous women set in what is now Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan. In my dissertation I wanted to expand the time frame and region but also more important to write about an Indigenous perspective, and the land the Anishinaabeg inhabit. The Anishinaabeg are the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi. Part of learning about an Anishinaabeg perspective is both learning and using Anishinaabemowin (Anishinaabe language). I set the narrative in Anishinaabewakiing and discuss northern and southern Anishinaabewakiing when the international border is drawn on the map in 1783. The Ojibwe migrate west into the Red River region in the mid 18th century and tapped Manitoba Maple.
MT: In 2011 you completed a master’s thesis in history at UW Milwaukee focusing on a similar topic of Indigenous Women and Maple Sugaring the Upper Midwest, albeit covering a slightly smaller time span of 1760 to 1848 and a different geographic space of the Upper Midwest. How did you get interested in this topic and how did your master’s thesis research set the stage for your doctoral research?
SDW: When I began thinking about getting a master’s degree it was to become a better researcher in my job as an historic cook and collections manager at living history sites where I worked. I grew up in Canada and had a passion for fur trade history and maple syrup. The University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee had a course on food history and a fur trade scholar, Dr. Cary Miller in the History Department. I began working with Dr. Miller on fur trade history and Great Lakes Indigenous history. In one of the courses, I read Susan Sleeper-Smith’s Indian Women and French Men. There was a tantalizing reference to maple sugar being shipped east to Detroit. I wanted to know more about who produced it, who collected it and where else it was shipped. Eventually, with the help of Dr. Miller I shaped a master’s thesis that was narrow enough in scope for a master’s theses but with the ability to expand in depth and breadth to a dissertation.
MT: Where would you place your research and interests as far as established schools of research? Do you see your work as ethnohistory, Indigenous studies, gender studies, food history, cultural geography, or a less structured but more inclusive interdisciplinary studies?
SDW: I see it as an interdisciplinary study that includes food history, Indigenous studies, traditional archival analysis, and analysis of language.
MT: Maple sugar in its various roles as a food item, an exchange good, or as a tool of economic power is central to your research. How has your research help us understand the historic role and place of Indigenous peoples in the development and evolution of the modern maple industry?
SDW: Indigenous women in the sugar maple growing region were instrumental in introducing maple sugar to colonists. Maple sugar was also modified in its appearance by Indigenous women to satisfy the need by upper class settlers for white sugar – white cane sugar was an indicator of wealth. Hand in hand with trade was the introduction of alterative equipment like copper kettles for producing maple products, and further changes to production. Great Lakes fur trade companies exported maple sugar east and, in some cases, Indigenous women’s maple sugar made it to Britain’s shores.
MT: Has developing a deeper understanding of the cultural and economic importance of maple products sparked interest in looking at questions of maple use in other historic contexts?
SDW: It has sparked an interest in the use of other maple products such as vinegar. It has also sparked an interest in the use of the sap of other trees in the Great Lakes region such as birch and the sap of trees on other continents.
MT: Your research topic geographically covers portions of what are today the United States and Canada, and likely your source materials were found in both countries, not to mention probably being written in English and French. What kinds of historical source material were you able to examine for your research and were there challenges to working with source material from two separate countries and languages?
SDW: I did not deal with too many French sources. The companies I concentrated on were British, Scottish, or American run companies. The Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) was run out of London, England. I went to the HBC archives in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Example of archival materials used in Dr. Wade’s research. Source – Hudson’s Bay Company Archives, Archives of Manitoba, Journal of Occurrences at Henly District 1819/20, B.117/a/4.
That is a wonderful archive and the Hudson’s Bay Company has detailed documentation of its posts. The management in London expected daily accounts of what was happening at the posts as well as detailed records of trade. The North West Company (NWC) was formed by small fur trade companies owned by Scottish merchants living in Montreal. Although they kept the French-Canadian voyageurs on their payroll the men who ran the posts were English speaking. The HBC eventually took over the NWC in 1821 and the men who ran the posts did not keep as detailed records as the HBC. The American Fur Company (AFC), established in 1808 in New York, had ties with some of the merchants in Montreal, but after the War of 1812 had virtual monopoly in the southern Anishinaabewakiing region. For the AFC I primarily used “Grace Lee Nute’s “Calendar of the American Fur Company Papers.” Some records for a small Montreal company, the XY company, that eventually joined with the NWC can be found in the Collections of the Wisconsin State Historical Society.
MT: Your study covers a time span of over two hundred years, during which a lot of things may have changed within the Fur Trade and Indigenous communities. What changes did you find over this span related to the manufacture, trade, or sale of maple sugar?
SDW: There were changes in all these areas. Changes in production happened as Indigenous people encountered European trade goods. The equipment changed as trade items were introduced and adapted and adopted by Indigenous groups for use. There were also changes to both the appearance and amount of sugar produced. Upper class white settlers and upper-class Hudson’s Bay company officers wanted maple sugar to look like white cane sugar and Indigenous women shifted the way they processed and purified some of the sugar for this market. In the spring of 1836, the man who oversaw a Hudson’s Bay Company post in the Lake Superior region sent two men to sugar camps to secure or “reserve the right” to trade for that year’s supply. The HBC did not want to miss out on this valuable commodity by having the rival AFC trade for it first.
MT: Your scholarly interests are not purely in the realm of ethnohistory, gender and Indigenous studies. You recently were part of a team that translated the classic French children’s book, “The Little Prince” into Anishinaabemowin, the Indigenous language of the Anishinaabe or Ojibwe peoples. How did you get involved in this project and how has working with Anishinaabemowin influenced your historical research?
SDW: My thesis advisor and advisor at the beginning of my dissertation, Cary Miller, stressed the importance of learning Anishinaabemowin in order to understand an Ojibwe worldview and to make connections with community members. I was taught the language by Margaret Noodin. I also worked with Dr Noodin on a grant, Ganawendamaw. As part of this grant, I helped with curriculum development for Anishinaabemowin class. One book used by teachers of many different languages is Le Petit Prince, it is translated in to so many languages. She was interested in completing a translation for use by teachers and families interested in learning Anishinaabemowin. I worked with her, Michael Zimmerman, and Angela Mesic to translate the text. It was during Covid lock down and was a wonderful experience to work with these scholars and create a text that could be used to teach and continue to revitalize the Anishinaabe language.
MT: The reservation era, a period immediately following the period of your study, saw great changes and upheaval for Indigenous communities. It would please me greatly to learn that you have plans for carrying this research further to look at the reservation era when forced relocation to reservations limited the seasonal mobility to places like sugaring camps, fur trade economies were replaced by cash-based settler economies, and substantial changes in gendered divisions of labor?
SDW: My master’s thesis did not go into this topic, but my dissertation does discuss the effects of settler colonialism on the Ojibwe and maple sugar production. One of the chapters talks about the ways Great Lakes and Red River nations keep a hold of their culture through treaty negotiations. In the nineteenth century in the United States, Ojibwe ogimaag (leaders) negotiated for the rights to gather resources on ceded land also known as usufructuary rights in the United States. In the case of Ojibwe in Canada, the ogimaag negotiated with the Canadian government in what is called the Numbered Treaties. In these regions the First Nations, including Ojibwe, did not cede land but instead negotiated for sharing the land and working with Euro-Canadians in taking care of natural resources. This, however, was not the intention of the Canadian government or her representatives whose aim was a surrender of lands. In the case of maple sugar, it was not just resources that were taken away, but also women-centered places where political activities, ceremonies, and teaching took place. It was a loss of women’s roles in their environment.
By the late nineteenth century, cane and beet sugar became the dominant form of table and cooking sugar. Maple sugar production waned but maple syrup gained in popularity, as you explain in your dissertation “Where the Forest Meets the Farm.” In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, in matters of maple syrup manufacturing it was not just the decimation of maple groves and appropriation of land but the attack on gendered food procurement. The Allotment Act (1887) promoted the life of the yeoman farmer whereby a man worked his farmland. Reservation land was divided into single farms given to men of households or single men. Although Indigenous women continued to harvest wild rice, collect berries and other resources, and manufacture maple sugar. It was not until after the Great Depression in the 1930s, that Indigenous men began to take on the production of maple sugar and syrup. Today Anishinaabeg maple production is more multi-gendered.
MT: You defended your dissertation in 2021. What is next? Do you plan to publish the doctoral study as a book length monograph, or will you be focusing on publishing the results in the form of a peer-reviewed article?
SDW: I have been working on a manuscript that combines my master’s thesis and doctoral dissertation. It has been a challenge learning to rewrite a dissertation into a book. I hope to send it to a publisher by the end of this summer. I am also working with a fellow scholar to create an exhibit on maple trees and the maple sugar bush.
You can read and download a copy of Dr. Wade’s doctoral dissertation at THIS LINK.
The archives of Paul Smith’s College has digitized and shared online a series of six films, originally shot in 16 mm color, that show various scenes of maple sugaring in the early 1960s.
When I contacted the archivists at Paul Smith’s to ask about the background on the films it was shared that very little was known. The films more or less appeared at the archives with no supporting information. It was not apparent who made the films, but in viewing, it was clear that the majority of the footage was made in New York state which suggested that possibly someone from the maple research program at Cornell University, or possibly maple equipment manufacturer Bob Lamb out of Liverpool, NY had made the films.
Bob Lamb’s May 15, 1961 Notice to tubing vendors – Courtesy of University of Vermont Archives.
I strongly suspected the films were shot by Bob Lamb considering he never personally appeared in any of the footage and the heavy emphasis on documenting only Lamb’s Naturalflow tubing with no examples of the other competing tubing product at the time.
My suspicions were confirmed when after a little sleuthing and digging in my research files from the Fred Laing folders of the maple research archives at the University of Vermont Special Collection turned up a notice from May 15, 1961 that was sent by Bob Lamb to the vendors that were selling his Naturalflow plastic tubing. In this notice Lamb writes:
A small group of us have been running 16 M.M. Colored movie cameras this spring over quite a wide spread area. We have tried to make the film a general “MAPLE FILM,” specializing in showing hundreds of miles of tubing and working right.
The film covers tubing, from taking tubing into the woods, tapping the trees, installing tubing, an (sic) disassembling, as well as washed and stored. The entire operation from start to finish. This portion is part of the Lloyd Sipple story. This part of the film is a wonderful way to show a prospect that has a great doubt as to what to do with tubing after he gets it. It will help others that want to improve their ways of using tubing.
None of the footage in the six films in the Paul Smith’s archives appears to be a single finished film that has been edited and prepared for distribution. Rather, it appears instead to be many minutes of raw footage, oftentimes showing the same general scene over and over. Also, as raw footage, some of the scenes appear to be underexposed and can be rather dark at times. it should also be pointed out that there is no audio with these digital films.
Announcement on page 11 of the November 1962 of the Maple Syrup Digest from Bob Lamb informing readers about the production and availability of a series of maple syrup films.
Subsequent research has located an advertisement placed by Bob Lamb in the November 1962 Maple Syrup Digest where he makes it known that he has filmed and prepared new films in 1962 in addition to his 1961 film and that these are available free, by request, for showing at maple meetings. He also notes the run time of the films, which are shorter than the Paul Smith’s footage, suggesting what he was offering were edited “finished” films and the Paul Smith’s films are the raw footage. Lamb also noted that none of these films had sound added at that time.
Based on the date and information in Lamb’s 1961 mailed out notice and 1962 Maple Syrup Digest ad, as well as the known date of the group photo at the Cooperstown meeting of the National Maple Syrup Council (1963), the footage in the films can be said to range from 1961-1963. Other elements and details in the footage, such as the packaging featured at the Reynolds Sugar Bush sales room, are consistent with this date range.
The six films feature various scenes and locations, mostly in New York but also in Ohio and Wisconsin. The bulk of the footage was shot at the sugarbush and sugar house of Lloyd Sipple in Bainbridge, New York. As mentioned in the quote from Bob Lamb’s notice, the focus of the footage is presenting Lamb’s Natural Flow plastic tubing in use so there are many minutes devoted to tapping and installing the tubing, checking tubing lines, and demonstrating tubing removal, dismantling and cleaning.
Because this was in the era when tubing was still new and evolving technology, it was recommended at the time that tubing should not be left hanging in the sugarbush and instead should be removed and meticulously cleaned and stored at the end of the season before being reinstalled the following winter. Likewise, it was the belief and recommendation of Bob Lamb at the time that his tubing should be laid across the ground or surface of the snow and not strung taunt at waist or chest height.
A number of individuals notable in the history of the maple industry and maple research are recognizable in the footage. These include sugarmaker and editor of Maple Syrup Digest, Lloyd Sipple of Bainbridge, NY; Dr. C.O. Willits of the USDA Eastern Regional Research Laboratory in Philadelphia, PA; Dr. Fred Winch of Cornell University; and Dr. James Marvin of the University of Vermont. There are also specific recognizable sugarbushes that appear in the footage, some brief, and some for many minutes. These include the Sipple’s Pure Maple Products in Bainbridge, NY ; Reynolds Sugar Bush in Aniwa, WI; Harold Tyler’s Maple Farm near Worchester, NY; Ray Norlin’s Central Evaporator Plant in Ogema, WI; Taylor Farm Sugar Camp in Stamford, NY; Keim’s Kamp Maple Products in West Salisbury, PA; and the Toque Rouge Sugar Camp in Quebec.
Below you will find links to the Paul Smith’s archive pages for all six of the films along with a few stills and comments noting some of scenes, people, locations, and highlights in each film. Click on the underlined title to be taken to the link to view each film.
Comments: Most of the film is repeated shots of a three person tapping crew installing Lamb tubing at Llyod Sipple’s sugarbush. Some scenes are at trees in the yard at his farm in front of the sugarhouse and others in the woods of the sugarbush.
The tapholes were being drilled using a King brand gasoline, backpack mounted power tapper followed by another man inserting an antimicrobial paraformaldehyde tablet into the tapholes before a third man inserted the plastic tap and attached tubing. Additional shots of tagged tapholes from previous years showing the effects on tap hole closure from treatment with Chlorox bleach versus paraformaldehyde tablets.
Other scenes include end of season removal process for plastic tubing including washing in a metal tank and rinsing with a pressure hose. Additional scenes are of gathering sap from roadside tanks by pumping into a tanker truck and a few shots of making maple candies in a candy kitchen.
Comments: Footage illustrating the process of installation of Lamb tubing in snow with the crew wearing snowshoes. Long drop lines installed at the tap holes were connected to lateral lines laid on the surface of the snow. A few shots of flushing freshly drilled tapholes with bleach solution prior to inserting plastic tap.
Shots of tanker truck delivering a load of fresh sap to Lloyd Sipple’s sugarhouse. Shots inside Sipple sugarhouse with Lloyd running three evaporators simultaneously. Additional views of Sipple filling N.Y.S. (New York State) one gallon metal syrup cans. There are short scenes of the Taylor Farm Sugar Camp in Stamford, New York, as well as a glimpse of the log cabin style sugarhouse in Burton, Ohio.
View of removal and cleaning of plastic tubing, followed by washing and coiling on reels for storage. On this removal day, Dr. C.O. Willits is seen observing and checking condition of tubing.
A short bit of footage of George Keim’s sugarhouse in Pennsylvania followed by views of sap being delivered to a sugarhouse in the unique Pennsylvania “double barrel” wooden sap gathering tank. Views of the tank being pulled by a team of horses then by a tractor. Some footage of candy making and filling candy molds.
Comments: many of the same general scenes as appear in other films in this group such as tapping and installation of tubing, inspection, removal, washing and storage. Notable shots of using paraformaldehyde pellet gun to insert pellet in taphole. Lloyd Sipple appears in footage working with installation crew.
Numerous views of the time consuming work of removal, washing, rinsing, and drying thousands of taps, drop lines, and fittings, and thousands of feet of tubing. Lateral lines and main lines were all removed and cleaned by hand and with pressurized water.
Additional footage of draining and drying tubing by stretching over roof of farm buildings before coiling on special rigs and storing in large rolls. Also a few moments of shots of women making maple candy and Lloyd Sipple maple granulated sugar in pot before sifting and packing into small jars.
Some viewers may recognize the view of the tanker truck pumping out a roadside collection tank as the source image for the artwork on the USDA Maple Sirup Producers Manualin the 1960s and 1970s. The original scene as appears in the film is a reverse of the artwork on the cover of the old maple manual.
Comments: Dr. C.O. Willits appears to monitor steam heated finishing evaporator at Sipple’s sugarhouse with other visitors looking on. Additional views of Lloyd Sipple standing alongside felt filters at the steam evaporators drawing off finished syrup.
Scenes of Dr. Fred Winch testing sugar levels in sap in the tank of a gathering truck using a hydrometers as well as an extended footage of Dr. Winch preparing sample dishes to measure bacterial growth in maple sap.
Short clip of attendees of 4th annual meeting of the National Maple Syrup Council assembled for group photograph in front of Fenimore Hall in Cooperstown, NY in 1963.
Comments: There are scenes of the inspection of Lamb Naturalflow plastic tubing, drop lines, lateral lines, and main lines running into sap collection tanks in the woods, including a short clip of Dr. James Marvin from the University of Vermont There is short section of footage at Harold Tyler’s Maple Farm, a 7,000 operation near Worchester, New York. Other short footage includes the log sugar house in Burton, Ohio that is part of the Geauga County Maple Festival.
The latter half of the film was shot at two sugarhouses in Wisconsin. There is about one minute of exterior and interior scenes show Ray Norlin’s brand new Central Evaporator Plant in Ogema, Wisconsin, which was built in 1962. Norlin’s was one of the first purpose built Central Evaporator Plants that made maple syrup almost exclusively from sap purchased from local sap gatherers rather than from sap gathered in a sugarbush owned or operated by the sugarmaker.
A substantial portion of this footage features the Reynolds Sugar Bush plant at Aniwa, Wisconsin during the boiling season.
There are scenes of sap being delivered and received by Juan Reynolds, both in large tanks drawn by a team of horses and in milk cans brought to the plant in the back seat of a car. Other scenes at the busy plant show an interior sales room with a enormous variety of syrup tins, bottles, as well as many shapes and designs of ceramic and plastic containers.
Other scenes show Adin Reynolds operating a syrup boiling tank as well as Lynn Reynolds describing one of the Reynolds’ large underground concrete syrup tanks located in their sugarbush.
Comments: Based on the style of architecture of the houses and cabins (notably flared eaves on the roof forms) the film was shot at a few sugarbushes and sugarhouses in Quebec including a visit to a sugarbush producing under the name of Toque Rouge (Red Cap) maple syrup.
Footage of Lamb tubing installations in Quebec at this time show it being widely adopted through the maple syrup world and Quebec sugarbushes were using the same layout and tubing design as in sugarbushes in the United States. One closeup of the text printed on the tubing reads Naturalflow – Montcalm, Quebec” showing the location where Lamb tubing for Quebec markets was being manufactured.
There are similar views of, installation, inspection of tubing lines that have already been hung and the trees tapped, as well as footage of breakdown and removal of the taps and plastic tubing using various designs for winding the tubing on reels or spools. Two sugarhouses in the film show large oil fired evaporators, fairly sophisticated for the early 1960s.
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Special thanks to the folks at the Paul Smith’s College Joan Weill Adirondack Library Archives for taking the time and getting the funding necessary to convert these 16 mm films to digital format and make them available to the public to view on their library website.
Adin Reynolds in front of a steam jacketed kettle. Source: Adirondack Experience P071388.
By one measure of mid-century popular culture, greatness or notoriety was achieved when one appeared on one of the television shows, What’s My Line, I’ve Got a Secret, or To Tell The Truth. On these shows celebrity judges attempted to guess the identity of a notable contestant placed among a group of imposters. In 1965, Adin Reynolds of Aniwa, Wisconsin had the honor of appearing on To Tell The Truth by virtue of his family business, Reynolds Sugar Bush, being the largest maple syrup making operation in the world. Reynolds’s appearance on television was surprising to many since Wisconsin is not among the first states that come to mind when thinking about maple syrup production.[1]
Since the Reynolds family arrived in Wisconsin from New York State in 1845, making maple sugar and syrup had always been one of many components of the family’s diversified subsistence and commercial activities. However, like many of their Shawano County neighbors, it was logging, sawmill operations, and dairy farming, not maple syrup production, that formed the core of the family business during their first 70 years in the state.[2]
Reynolds Sugar Bush pure maple syrup can. Source: Private collection.
Over the course of the first half of the twentieth century maple syrup production in the United States was in a state of gradual decline. While this decline was most pronounced in New England and New York, the core of the maple producing region, it was also true of Wisconsin maple syrup production. Maple syrup and maple sugar making has been a spring time activity in the seasonal rural economy of Wisconsin starting with the resident Native American population to early Euro-American settlers, and on to the dairy and those harvesting forest-products in the far north.[3]
In the years following World War II, maple syrup making reached an all-time low in the United States. At the same time, rural America was witnessing important shifts in attitudes and demographics along with the introduction of new agricultural technology and business models. For those that were able to recognize the opportunities and willing to take the risks, such change presented opportunities previously not possible. It was from such a place and a willingness to think and act independently that Reynolds Sugar Bush grew from making syrup as a small seasonal side pursuit to their sawmill and dairy operation, to a year-round, factory-scale business, becoming the industry leader far from the maple syrup heartland of the northeastern United States and adjacent Quebec.
Cover of Reynolds Sugar Bush 1964 equipment sales catalog. Catalogs from additional years came in different colors schemes (brown, blue, red, green). Source: collection of author.
The ability for a syrup operation to grow so large was possible by building the right processing facilities and infrastructure, having a market to sell the syrup, and literally tapping into the trees of their neighbors. But growth did not happen overnight. The Reynolds family had been tapping a few thousand trees in the mid-1940s but in 1947, things began to change when they built a new sugarhouse near their farm house, adjacent to a paved county road and alongside the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad line. They also began a partnership that year as the midwestern dealer and distributor of maple syrup making equipment for the Vermont Evaporator Company. With the syrup plant now alongside the road and making syrup on two large evaporators, they began buying sap from around 4,000 of their neighbors’ taps, augmenting more than 6,000 taps on their own land.[4]
To provide some stability and supplement their farm and forest products business, years earlier Adin Reynolds had taken work as a part-time mail carrier, later becoming the postmaster of Aniwa in 1948. His new emphasis on maple syrup making and equipment sales were paying off, and in 1951 Adin retired from the post office and began focusing on maple full-time. Up until the late 1940s there were no maple equipment dealers in Wisconsin or adjacent Minnesota and maple producers had to buy their evaporators and other large supplies from dealers in Ohio, New York, or New England. There was a clear opportunity and eager group of customers in the Midwest.[5] Around this same time, Reynolds also entered the syrup buying business, purchasing bulk syrup from other producers to be combined and resold to larger processors, syrup blenders, and bottlers. In 1948 the J.M. Abraham Company of Bellefontaine, Ohio contracted with Reynolds to provide the Ohio syrup packing company with all the syrup Reynolds Sugar Bush was willing to spare from their own production and all the syrup Reynolds could acquire locally. Reynolds Sugar Bush began shipping truckloads of syrup to the Abraham Company, adding syrup buying and brokering to the growing portfolio of their maple syrup operation.[6]
Left to right, Lynn Reynolds, Juan Reynolds, Adin Reynolds, and Bob Lamb in front of Reynolds Sugar Bush Aniwa syrup plant, circa 1960. Source: Adirondack Experience P071388
Although Adin was founder and leader of Reynolds Sugar Bush, his two sons, Juan and Lynn, were graduating from high school and making their way in the world as adults. Both sons always had roles in the syrup business, but as young men they were able to take on greater responsibility. The early half of the 1950s saw Juan and Lynn temporarily pulled away from the family business with Korean War era service in the Army and Marines followed by college education. However, in the late 1950s both sons had returned to Aniwa and began working full-time in the now flourishing family maple business. As Lynn Reynolds later described it, in the late 1950s and 1960s Adin oversaw everything and “created the management, marketing, and financing; Juan managed the plant and the personnel; and Lynn was the public relations person, salesman for equipment, the syrup buyer, and managed the production plants.”[7]
Image of the new Reynolds Sugar Bush building in 1954. Photo by Dean Tvedt. Source: University of Wisconsin-Madison archives.
Through the 1950s, Adin continued to expand Reynolds Sugar Bush syrup making operation, using his quiet charisma to convince farmers and woodlot owners around Shawano, Langlade, and Marathon Counties to tap their maple trees and sell their raw sap to Reynolds. Reynolds also began renting additional trees to augment the maples on their own 800 acres as well as buying sap from their neighbors. In 1949 Reynolds added a third large (6’ x 20’) evaporator, and by 1956, the Reynolds were making syrup from 25,000 of their own taps and buying sap from many thousands more. Another evaporator was added to the plant in 1958 and all four evaporators were converted from wood burning to oil burning. Adin Reynolds was said to have hated cutting a maple tree, comparing it to cutting off an arm, so the family never thinned their maple woods and burned waste slabs from a local sawmill prior to switching to oil.[8]
Interior of Reynolds Sugar Bush plant showing large, side-by-side, oil fired evaporators. Source: Unknown.
Processing sap gathered from many independently owned sugarbushes at one large boiling facility became known as the Central Evaporator Plant (CEP) model, and Reynolds Sugar Bush became leaders in perfecting and promoting the CEP.[9] The idea of only selling sap rather than taking on the whole task of making finished syrup was not invented by Reynolds, although he took it to another level. The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture had been promoting the idea and use of a central evaporation plant for maple syrup producers since the 1930s.[10] Locally in the 1930s and 1940s, a group called the Antigo Maple Syrup Producers Association, in which Adin Reynolds was an early leader, attempted to pool their efforts in processing sap and marketing maple, without much success.[11] For Wisconsinites, the CEP concept will look familiar, with its strong resemblance to the arrangement of local dairies, creameries, and milk cooperatives, where dozens of farmers sell or deliver their raw milk to a central processing facility. Like butterfat in milk, the value of and compensation for raw maple sap was based on its relative sugar content measured by a refractometer. Sap at 1.5% sugar might get three cents a gallon while sap at 6% sugar might earn six cents a gallon. As Juan Reynolds described it, “if they had a halfway decent season and a good sugar content, they could make at minimum a dollar a tap. One guy down the road had real sweet trees, he often averaged more than $2 a tap, that is more than a guy making maple syrup could do after you have invested in all the boiling equipment and marketed it.”[12] As with milk, sap from multiple sources is combined and handled by individuals with the technology, expertise, and market connections to turn their raw product into a packaged or processed item for sale and distribution. Combining and finishing the concentrated sap at a central location resulted in better quality and more uniform syrup than was often produced in smaller sugar houses and backyard boiling operations at that time.[13]
Adin Reynolds pouring sap from the Sap Sak collection bag he invented. Source: Wausau Daily Herald – April 21, 1972
The countryside around the Aniwa plant is marked with dairy farms interspersed between stands of second growth sugar maples. Farm families had the two most important components for sap production – trees and available labor to tap and gather. Moreover, the months of March and April were the slow and muddy seasons for most farm families. People in the region were more than willing to tap their maple trees and sell their sap for cash. Juan Reynolds recalled that they had as many as 50-60 families from within a 20-mile radius selling sap to them, with most of the sap sellers tapping 500-800 trees.[14]
In 1959, the General Foods Corporation, the makers of Log Cabin Syrup, a blend of cane and maple syrup, contracted with Reynolds Sugar Bush to purchase 20,000 gallons of maple syrup. With scheduled deliveries of syrup from Reynolds’ Aniwa plant to General Foods’ Chicago bottling plant, Reynolds began serious entry into the syrup buying business. For General Foods, the Aniwa bottling plant was attractive because it was close enough to Chicago that Reynolds Sugar Bush could fill syrup orders quickly, if needed. This large of a syrup contract led Reynolds to start shipping syrup 4,000-gallons at a time via tanker truck. Wisconsin was not producing enough syrup to meet this need, so Reynolds began buying in the northeastern United States and Canada.
Tanker truck for hauling large deliveries of maple syrup parked in front of Reynolds Sugar Bush plant, circa early 1960s. Source: unknown.
At its peak, the General Foods contract had Reynolds Sugar Bush shipping twenty-seven tanker loads (108,000 gallons) of syrup from Aniwa to Chicago. At that time in history, moving this volume of maple syrup out of a midwestern hub rather than New England or Quebec was a significant departure from how the maple industry had traditionally operated. Reynolds continued this contract with General Foods for 20 years until General Foods reduced the amount of maple syrup in their Log Cabin blend from 15% in 1959 to 2% by 1979. After the General Foods Corporation merged with Philip Morris in 1985 the previous contract arrangements were no longer honored and Reynolds Sugar Bush stopped supplying maple syrup to General Foods.[15]
With a growing contract for bulk syrup and more markets opening up, Reynolds Sugar Bush went through a period of expansion buying three equally large syrup making operations, beginning in 1960 with the purchase of George Klement’s Maple Orchard in nearby Polar, Wisconsin. For much of the 1950s, the Klement sugarhouse was also operating with a central evaporator plant model similar to Reynolds, buying sap from 50,000 taps and making syrup on four large 6’ x 20’ King brand evaporators. Other than converting the evaporators from wood fired to oil fired, the Reynolds changed little, continuing to work with Klement’s sap sellers and expanded the number of taps coming in to 65,000. In 1963 Reynolds acquired the CEP operation of Sidney Maas at Tilleda, Wisconsin where syrup was made on two 6’ x 16’ Vermont Evaporator Company boiling rigs.
Left to Right, Adin Reynolds, Lynn Reynolds, Juan Reynolds, and Bob Lamb in front of a large oil-fired evaporator at Reynolds Sugar Bush, circa 1960. Source: Adirondack Experience P071388.
Reynolds converted these from wood to oil and now all the CEPs under Reynolds control were fired with fuel oil. Since those plants relied on sap from the forests of sap providers, Reynolds did not have a ready supply of wood to burn.[16] The sap input was further increased at these plants and by 1964, Reynolds Sugar Bush was making syrup from sap coming in from over 100,000 taps.[17] The Reynolds’ confidence was clearly very high by this time, so much so that in 1961 Adin made the claim that the output from sugarbushes in the Aniwa area could outproduce any comparable area in Vermont![18]
The third maple syrup operation purchased by Reynolds Sugar Bush in the 1960s was in Kingsley, Michigan a short distance south of Traverse City. The Kingsley plant was opened in 1962 by General Foods who wanted to improve their access to maple syrup in an area relatively close to their Chicago bottling facility. Identifying Kingsley as an area with an abundance of maple trees and a local agricultural population that was largely without work in the spring months, General Foods leased an old pickle factory in town, engineered a sap boiling facility, installed four 6’ x 18’ oil fired, stainless steel evaporators, and operated it as a CEP from purchased sap. To assist and encourage the new sap producers to acquire tapping equipment, General Foods purchased large quantities of spiles and buckets to supplement the limited local supply and arranged a loan program with a local bank to finance producers.[19] By 1964, the Kingsley plant was making syrup from 65,000 taps.[20] Despite the size of the operation, its engineering was more complicated than it needed to be, and it was not running as smoothly as General Foods had envisioned. Having an existing relationship with Reynolds Sugar Bush and a familiarity with their other successful plants, in 1966 General Foods sold the plant to Reynolds Sugar Bush for next to nothing with the condition that all the syrup produced by the plant be sold to General Foods.[21] Reynolds operated the Kingsley plant as one of their satellite CEPs until the 1970s when interest in sap selling in the area fell to unmanageably low numbers and the plant was closed.[22]
Reynolds’ sales booth at Wisconsin State Fair, early 1960s. Left to Right, Geraldine Reynolds, Juan Reynolds, unnamed Alice in Dairyland, Adin Reynolds. Source: Wisconsin Maple Syrup Producers Association.
Always looking for new ways to expand and promote the maple syrup industry and Reynolds Sugar Bush, Adin and family often hit the road in the summer, setting up sales and display booths at state fairs and festivals, and giving industry talks around the Midwest. Before the Wisconsin State Maple Syrup Producers’ Association (WMSPA) took over the responsibility in the 1990s, the Reynolds’ 100-foot by 40-foot display was the primary promotional booth for maple syrup at the Wisconsin State Fair.[23]
Color photo postcard of Reynolds Sugar Bush gift shop “The Sugar House,” circa 1965. Source: collections of author.
Reynolds even erected “The Sugar House” a roadside gift shop along Highway 45 targeted at tourist traffic travelling between Milwaukee and Chicago and the woods and lake country of northern Wisconsin.
One of Adin Reynolds most popular ideas for promoting the maple industry was an annual pancake breakfast and maple festival. Starting in 1950 with around 1000 visitors, every spring for over forty years, thousands of people descended on the Reynolds farm to celebrate the state’s maple syrup industry while enjoying a pancake breakfast, seeing what was new in maple syrup production, and finding out who made the state’s best maple syrup that year. In 1956 the WMSPA came on board to help and the festival grew to as many as 5000 attendees.[24]
Lynn Reynolds operating the pancake machine at the Wisconsin Maple Syrup Festival held at the Reynolds Sugar Bush each May. Source: Appleton, WI Post Crescent, May 29, 1966.
Visitors were treated to maple syrup themed exhibits and speakers, live entertainment, and served an all you can eat pancake breakfast. Pancakes were cranked out on an assembly line with a pancake making machine designed by Adin called the “pancake depositor” that poured the batter for 24 pancakes at a time onto a griddle.[25] Maple producers entered their best syrup from the year for judging, competing for the honor of receiving the golden sap pail or golden sap spout. For 45 years the Wisconsin maple syrup festival continued to be held at Reynolds Sugar Bush through 1995 when it moved to Merrill and became the responsibility of the WMSPA.[26]
Patent drawing for Adin Reynolds’ Sap Sak. US patent No. 3,304,654. Source: US Patent and Trademark Office Website.
By the mid to late 1960s, all four plants operated by Reynolds Sugar Bush combined were processing over 1200 gallons of sap an hour on a dozen large evaporators from sap gathered from over 200,000 taps.[27] Adin had even earned a patent for his invention of a simple and economical hanger for disposable plastic sap bags, called the Sap Sak.[28] Without question, as emphasized with Adin’s 1965 television appearance on To Tell the Truth, Reynolds Sugar Bush had become the largest maple syrup making operation in the world.[29]
Although he was operating far from the maple syrup heartland, industry leaders in the North American Maple Syrup Council (NAMSC), recognizing the significance of Adin Reynolds’ influence and leadership, electing him Council Vice President in 1963 and President in 1965.[30] Reynolds were strong proponents for research and bringing together the US and Canada sides of the industry in addressing maple issues important to both countries. Putting those views to action, Adin was instrumental in helping organize the International Maple Syrup Institute (IMSI), a group focused on developing markets for the maple industry. Adin Reynolds served as the IMSI’s second president from 1976 to 1977 and on its Board of Directors from 1980 to 1984.
Lynn Reynolds, past President and Executive Director or the IMSI. Source: Back cover of Reynolds’ book – Reynolds, Maple and History – Fit for Kings.
Sons Juan Reynolds and Lynn Reynolds were as equally engaged as their father and continued his legacy of leadership with Juan an IMSI Board member from 1985 to 1997 and President in 1990 and Lynn an IMSI President from 1993 to 1995 and Executive Director from 1995 until his death in 1998. Lynn also served in a series of roles as NAMSC secretary, then Vice President and President from 1989 to 1993.[31] The IMSI established a Lynn Reynolds Memorial Leadership Award in 1999 to recognize the outstanding leadership of individuals in support of the international maple syrup industry.[32]
Adin Reynolds receiving recognition award from Dean of College of Agriculture in 1982, surrounded by other recipients of recognition. Source: Archives of the University of Wisconsin College of Agriculture.
Adin retired from running Reynolds Sugar Bush in 1979 and turned over the leadership of the company to his son Juan. With retirement, Adin was given the highest honor by the maple syrup industry when he was chosen as the fifth inductee for the North American Maple Syrup Producers Hall of Fame. In 1982 he was one of five men recognized by the University of Wisconsin for his contribution to agriculture and quality of life in Wisconsin by the Dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.[33] Adin passed away in 1987 as the age of 82. Following in his father’s footsteps, Lynn Reynolds was inducted into the Maple Syrup Producers Hall of Fame in 1995 as the forty-second inductee.[34]
Juan Reynolds testing sugar content of maple syrup. Source: Milwaukee Journal – April 11, 1977.
In the 1980s changing markets and an increased difficulty in finding seasonal labor pushed Reynolds Sugar Bush to scale back its sap buying and syrup production to making syrup at only one plant at their original location on the farm north of Aniwa.[35] Rapid growth in syrup production out of Quebec and lowering syrup prices became too difficult to compete with, leading to the loss of two of their biggest clients on the west coast. Eventually the losses became too great for Reynolds Sugar Bush and in 1991 they were forced to liquidate many of their assets, including their sugarbush, and resize and restructure the company as part of bankruptcy proceedings.[36] Around this time, two of their largest sap providers decided to make their own syrup leaving Reynolds Sugar Bush with too little sap coming in to effectively make syrup in a plant of their size. With reorganization and a limited sap supply, syrup production came to an end for Reynolds Sugar Bush, although equipment sales continued.
Jay Reynolds collecting sap from Sap Sak Source: Milwaukee Journal March 31, 1981.
Operation of the company was put in the hands of Juan’s and Lynn’s children, the next generation of Reynolds, and Juan and Lynn Reynolds moved into retirement, although neither was especially idle when it came to helping with the family business or the involvement in industry associations. Lynn Reynolds carried on with his efforts as a representative and advocate for the industry in North America until his death in 1998 and Juan remained a hands-on advisor to the family business until his passing in 2008.[37]
Appearance of Reynolds Sugar Bush boiling plant when it was no longer operational in 2002. Photo by author.
With the Reynolds’ leadership and the foundation they helped lay, Wisconsin maple syrup producers went from being a minor contributor in the maple syrup industry to one of the leading states.[38] Reynolds own production numbers were undeniably significant, as was their influence as sap buyers, equipment sellers, and syrup brokers. Adin Reynolds succeeded in establishing a collaborative maple syrup production process based on the modern creamery that made sense in a dairy state like Wisconsin. Attempts at making syrup from purchased sap in the Northeastern United States and adjacent Canada have never been embraced the way it was in Wisconsin, possibly a result of the CEP production model being a significant departure and challenge to traditional ideas of syrup making. However, as one of the lead federal maple syrup researchers described it, “the current trend toward central evaporator plants has marked a new era in the maple industry.”[39] During the height of Reynolds Sugar Bush, Wisconsin moved from being the eighth ranked maple syrup producing state in 1930 to fifth in 1940 and 1950, to third in 1960, behind Vermont and New York where it more or less hovered for the next three decades.[40] Unfortunately for the Reynolds, the industry and markets shifted more rapidly than they were able to adjust and they could not maintain the same operation as they had in the past. Change came, as it always does, and it cost them but not before the Reynolds family and Reynolds Sugar Bush left their mark and put Wisconsin maple syrup making on the map.
Acknowledgements: Financial assistance for completion of the research for this article was provided in part by a McIntire-Stennis Program grant from the United States Department of Agriculture as part of the University of Wisconsin-Madison doctoral dissertation research of the author. Special thanks to Anne Reynolds for her support and assistance with this research.
Additional posts on this website related to the Reynolds Sugar Bush can be found at these links:
[3] Matthew M. Thomas, Where the Forest Meets the Farm: A Comparison of Spatial and Historical Change in the Euro-American and American Indian Maple Production Landscape PhD dissertation, (University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2004).
[4] Reynolds would continue to sell for the Vermont Evaporator Company for the lifetime of that company, which was sold to the Leader Evaporator Company in 1972. Reynolds Sugar Bush then carried Leader brands for the remaining years of their equipment sales business. Reynolds, Reynolds, 359.
[5] Ibid, page number; Juan Reynolds, personal interview with author, 31 July 2002.
[8] Juan Reynolds, interviewed by the author, July 31, 2002, Aniwa, WI; Reynolds, 371.
[9] Matthew M. Thomas, “The Central Evaporator Plant in Wis. Maple History,” Wisconsin Maple News 21, no. 2 (2005): 10.
[10] “Favor Central Boiling Plant: State Speaker Says Maple Syrup Should be Made Like Creamery Butter,” Chippewa Herald Telegram, December 2, 1931; Peter Dale Weber, “Wisconsin Maple Products: Production and Marketing”, Wisconsin State Department of Agriculture Bulletin No. 335 (Madison, WI, 1956), 37.
[11] “Maple Syrup Plant is now in Operation at Antigo; Sap Delivered from 40 Groves,” Wausau Daily Herald, March 27, 1934; “Maple Syrup Season Near in Wisconsin: Langlade County Center of Production in Wisconsin,” Kenosha Evening News, February 26, 1936; Weber, 25-27.
[12] Jerry -Apps, Cheese: The Making of a Wisconsin Tradition (Amherst, WI: Amherst Press, 1998); Loyal Durand, Jr., “The Migration of Cheese Manufacture in the United States,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 42, no. 2 (1952): 263-282; C.O. Willits and Claude H. Hills, Maple Sirup Producers Manual. Agriculture Handbook No. 134. (Washington, DC: USDA Agricultural Research Service, slightly revised July 1976), 116-117; Juan Reynolds, personal interview with author, 31 July 2002.
[13]Thomas, “Central Evaporator Plant in Wis.”; J.C. Kissinger, Lloyd Sipple, and C.O. Willits, “Maple Sap Delivered to a Central Evaporation Plant – A Progress Report,” Maple Syrup Digest 3, no3 (1964): 8-10.
[14] Juan Reynolds, interviewed by the author, September 19, 2002, Aniwa, WI.
[15] Reynolds, 398-400; “A Sticky Situation: Maple Syrup Providers Can’t Satisfy Demand,” Wall Street Journal June 23, 1967; “Log Cabin Syrup Maker Cuts Maple Use From 3% to 2%,” Pittsburgh Press, January 15, 1979; Juan Reynolds, interviewed by the author, July 31, 2002, Aniwa, WI; Prior to Reynolds, Sherman Holbert in Minnesota had a syrup contract with General Foods in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Matthew M. Thomas, “Short and Sweet: Sherman Holbert’s Mid-Century Mille Lacs Lake Maple Syrup Experiment,” Minnesota History 66 no. 2 (2018): 66-73.
[16] “They stick to syrup: Four-generation operation near Antigo,” Green Bay Press-Gazette, April 5, 1964.
[17] The Tilleda and Polar plants were closed in the1970s when sap prices were too low to continue operation. The Polar plant equipment and facility were sold in pieces and the Tilleda plant was sold back to Sidney Maas. Maas later sold the Tilleda plant to Wagner’s Sugarbush out of Peshtigo who still run the plant as part of their large syrup making operation. Reynolds, 425, 434; Lloyd Sipple, “National Council News,” Maple Syrup Digest 5, no. 4 (1966): 4-6.
[18] “Sweet Challenge for Tree-Tappers in Vermont Given,” Green Bay Press-Gazette, April 3, 1961.
[19] “Sap Goes to Market,” Traverse City Record-Eagle, April 13, 1962; “Streamlined Syrup Operations at Kingsley,” Traverse City Record-Eagle, May 27, 1962.
[20] “Sap Will Flow in U.P., But Not Into Bank,” Escanaba Daily Press, March 1, 1965.
[21] “Reynolds Sugarbush, Inc. of Aniwa, Wisconsin, announces the purchases of General Foods of Kingsley,” Traverse City Record-Eagle, February 21, 1967.
[23] Ibid., 412-413; Adin Reynolds, “Wisconsin Promotes Maple,” Maple Syrup Digest 7, no. 4 (1968): 6-7; “Buckets Fulla dollars: Maple Syrup is Called Bonanza Bet in Peninsula,” Escanaba Daily Press, February 19, 1964; “Local Residents not Utilizing Maple Trees to Fullest for Maple Syrup,” Bedford Daily Times (Bedford, IN), January 9, 1964; “Area Maple Syrup Potential Said Untapped,” Daily Journal (Fergus Falls, MN), February 5, 1965.
[24] Reynolds, 372-373; “1st Maple Syrup Festival Sunday,” Milwaukee Sentinel Extra May 26, 1956, 6; “Maple Syrup Festival Draws Large Turnout,” Wausau Daily Herald, May 23, 1960; “Maple Syrup Promotion in Wisconsin,” National Maple Syrup Digest 3, no. 3 (1964): 7; “Despite Weather, 3,000 Attend Maple Syrup Festival,” Green Bay Press-Gazette, May 27, 1968.
[25] “Flapjack Assembly Line in Production Today in Aniwa,” The Post Crescent Sun, May 29, 1966.
[26] Reynolds Sugar Bush even took their pancake making assembly line on the road. For about 10 years in the 1950s and 60s they provided pancake making services at festivals around the Midwest, while selling their syrup to the visitors. Reynolds, 402.
[27] “Staid Maple Syrup Industry Goes Modern,” Post Crescent (Appleton, WI), April 16, 1967; “Sugar Moon Season,” Wausau Daily Herald, April 21, 1972.
[28] Adin C. Reynolds, Device for Collecting Pourable Materials, US Patent 3304654, issued February 21, 1967.
[29] With an operation of over 200,000 taps by the mid-1960s Reynolds Sugar Bush was unquestionably the largest in the world. Interestingly, as early as 1954 there were those that were describing Reynolds as the world’s largest. “Dr. and Mrs. R.C. Dygert…,” Argos Reflector (Argos, IN), September 16, 1954.
[30] Adin Reynolds, “Council,” National Maple Syrup Digest 4, no. 4 (1965): 5.
[31] “State syrup maker will guide council,” The Country Today, October 30, 1991.
[32] The North American Maple Syrup Council began life in 1959 as the National Maple Syrup Council with a particular focus on advancing and improving the United States maple syrup industry with a special focus on supporting research. It changed its names from National to North American in 1973 to expand its scope and integrate the views and needs of the entire maple industry in both the United States and Canada. “Brief History of the Development of the North American Maple Syrup Council” North America Maple Syrup Council website accessed at http://northamericanmaple.org/index.php/history-of-namsc/.
[33] “UW to honor Adin Reynolds,” Wausau Daily Herald, March 12, 1982.
[34] “Adin Reynolds,” Wausau Daily Herald, December 15, 1987; “Lynn Reynolds Joins Maple Syrup Hall of Fame,” Post Crescent (Appleton, WI) June 4, 1995.
[35] “Snow perks up morale at Reynolds’ Sugarbush,” Wausau Daily Herald, March 18, 1983; “It must be spring, steam is rising in maple country,” The Country Today, April 5, 1984.
[36] “Syrup producer files bankruptcy,” Capital Times, March 27, 1991; Melissa lake, “Price war sours syrup business,” Wausau Daily Herald, March 26, 1991; “Maple syrup maker battles Quebec prices: Reynolds Sugar Bush is largest independent firm,” Wausau Daily Herald, March 18, 1992.
[37] “Lynn H. Reynolds,” Post Crescent (Appleton, WI), September 1, 1998; “In Memorium: Juan L. Reynolds,” Maple Syrup Digest 20A, no. 2 (2008): 38.
[38] “Maple Syrup Promotion in Wisconsin,” Maple Syrup Digest vol 3, no. 4, October 1954: 7.
[40] Gary Graham, Maple Syrup Production Statistics: An Updated Report to the North American Maple Syrup Council (Ohio State University Extension, October 2016); “Maple Syrup Production in State Hits High: Wisconsin Jumps from Fifth to Third in Nation”, AppletonPost Crescent, May 26, 1961. In the 2000s the state of Maine, with strong connections to neighboring Quebec, greatly increased its maple syrup product such that it is now the number two or three producing state behind perpetual leaders Vermont and sometimes New York state. Wisconsin has been bumped to a rank of fourth or fifth depending on the year.
I am happy to share on this website a digital version of the late Lynn H. Reynolds’ book Reynolds, Maple and History: Fit for Kings. This colossal book shares the story of many generations of Reynolds family maple syrup making within the broader context of the history of maple industry in North America. Especially interesting in the book are the first hand memories and experiences of members of the Reynolds family from Wisconsin who were engaged at all levels and components of the maple industry for much of the 20th century. In particular, Adin Reynolds and his two sons Lynn and Juan Reynolds saw it all, from making a lot of maple syrup (they were the largest operation in the world for many years in the 1960s and 1970s), equipment sales, buying and selling syrup, to organizational leadership at the state, national, and international levels.
Originally published in 1998 with a limited number of copies printed, the book quickly sold out and went out of print. Having been asked on numerous occasions by folks interested in maple history where they might get a copy I decided to contact the Reynolds family and thankfully they were kind enough to grant me permission to create a PDF copy of the book and make it available to people for free on this website.
The book covers 578 pages, so be advised, the digital file is fairly large at 115 mb. In addition, I created an index for the maple syrup history topics covered in the book and have included it at the end of the PDF version. You can down load the book HERE or by clicking on the image of the book above.
Every few years a new book comes out on the culture or history of maple sugaring and maple syrup many which are highlighted on this website. In addition to these new and easily found books are a number of classics that those interested in maple history may want to look for and add to their collections. Here are four such books written with a local or regional focus that were all published over ten years ago, some of which are now out of print.
From oldest to newest, first we have the book When the Sugar Bird Sings: The History of Maple Syrup in LanarkCounty by Claudia Smith. Published in 1996, this great little book features the history and stories of maple sugar and syrup making in and around Lanark County, Ontario. It is illustrated with numerous historic photos of Lanark County maple operations and boasts of Lanark County as the Maple Capital or Ontario. While out of print, this book can be found used online at such sources as www.abebooks.com and www.amazon.com.
Next up in the lineup is a massive 578-page tome from 1998 titled Reynolds, Maple and History: Fit For Kings by the late Lynn H. Reynolds from Aniwa, Wisconsin. This book, a labor of love for Lynn Reynolds that highlights the events and importance of the Reynolds family and their Reynolds Sugarbush, was privately published in a limited run of 450 copies by the Reynolds family, sadly only a few weeks following Lynn’s passing. In the 1960s and 1970s the Reynolds Sugarbush was the single largest maple syrup producing company in United States or Canada, making maple syrup from well over 125,000 taps. The three men of the company, father Adin Reynolds (1905-1987), and brothers Lynn H. Reynolds (1936-1998) and Juan L. Reynolds (1930-2008) were all prominent leaders in the maple industry during their heyday and both Adin and Lynn were inducted into the Maple Syrup Producers Hall of Fame.
Written from the memory and point of view of Lynn Reynolds, the book tells many histories in a side-by-side chronological fashion with the story of the Reynolds family presented in one font, maple syrup industry history in another font, and general local, Wisconsin, US, and World history presented in a third font. For the maple historian the book is chock full of names, dates and descriptions of events in the history of both the Wisconsin and North American maple industries. The Reynolds sections of the books recount the interesting growth of the Reynolds company as maple industry juggernaut despite of being located in north central Wisconsin, far from new England or Quebec.
Lynn Reynolds was not a shy man nor one to temper his opinions when they mattered to him, so unsurprisingly the book does suffer from a bit of Reynolds exceptionalism, but in all honesty, that is not without some degree of merit, since the Reynolds family was very influential and the Reynolds Sugarbush was pushing the scale of maple operations at that period in maple industry history. If you can find a copy of this book snatch it up immediately. I have used my copy so extensively for reference I even built my own index for easier use, available here. My copy has seen so much use (in spite of being purchased new) that it is coming apart at the binding, so maybe at some point in the future I will scan the whole book and seek permission from the Reynolds family to make it available here.
Third in this list is the book Maple Sugaring In New Hampshire by Barbara Mills Lassonde. Published in 2004 by Arcadia Publishing as part of their Images of America series, this book is still in print and available at the Arcadia Publishing website. Like all books in the Images of America series, Maple Sugaring in New Hampshire is a photo history book with hundreds of great images and accompanying captions tracing the history of maple production in New Hampshire from the colonial days up into the 21st century.
Lastly, is the very well researched book Spotza, Keelers, and Stirred Sugar: The Legacy of Maple Sugaring in Somerset County, Pennsylvania by Mark Ware. Released in 2006 by the Historical and Genealogical Society of Somerset County, this well illustrated book presents years of research on the methods, material culture, and economic history of sugaring in a small but very active corner of Pennsylvania. With his position as the Executive Director of the Somerset County Historical Center, Mark Ware has taken the time to look deeply into the records, family histories, and artifacts and antiques. That knowledge is shared both in this book and in the exhibit of reconstructed 1860s sugar camp at the Somerset Historical Center. This book can be purchased online from the Somerset Historical Center website.
Over the years as my research into Native American maple sugaring progressed I never ceased to be impressed by one particular scholarly publication. A variety of careful treatments of various topics that touch on the role and place of sugaring in the lives, economy, and culture of Native North America have been written and published and still more are coming out every year. Likewise, important articles and papers presenting research on the maple sugar origins debate and archaeological investigations into Native American maple sugaring have and will continue to be featured in this blog. But in the last thirty years, for me one piece stands out as a unique, well-researched, well-referenced, and thought-provoking article written from a broader ethnohistorical perspective.
The article, available at the links here, is Robert “Bob” H. Keller’s America’s Native Sweet: Chippewa Treaties and the Right to Harvest Maple Sugar.It was published in 1989 in the journal American Indian Quarterly (vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 117-135) and makes a well-argued case for the protection and exercising of the right of Anishinabe people (also known as Chippewa or Ojibwe) to harvest maple sap and make maple sugar and syrup on off-reservation lands in the ceded territories of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.
The context of the timing of the article was that in the 1980s Native Americans from Anishinabe Bands (sometimes called tribes) across the Lake Superior region were fighting the states in court to defend their rights to hunt, gather, and fish on lands outside the boundaries of their reservations, rights that were reserved in exchange for ceding ownership of these lands to the federal government via a number of treaties agreed to in the 1800s. To make a long story short, the Anishinabe were successful in court and their reserved rights were recognized. The regulation of fishing and the sharing of the annual take of fish by sportsman, commercial fishing, and treaty-protected fishing was the overwhelming focus of debate both before and after the conclusion of the cases in court. While the issue of off-reservation maple sugaring as a treaty-right was barely acknowledged.
Nevertheless, Bob Keller dove into the topic and in doing so presented a wonderful overview of the history and cultural significance of maple sugaring for western Great Lakes tribes in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. For anyone interested in a short but accurate introduction to intersection of some of the social and political issues and questions related to the evolution of Native American maple sugaring into the 21st century, that is grounded in historical research, Keller’s article is the place to start.
For those interested in who Bob Keller was, Bob Keller was a professor of history in the Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington. He wrote about a wide range of environmental and historical topics, including Native American history. He retired in the 1990s before passing away in 2017.
Another notable and related work to Keller’s look at maple sugaring as a treaty-right and digs a little deeper into documenting the historic use and importance of maple sugaring to one Anishinabe community in Minnesota is the massive 572 page tome Fish in in the Lakes, Wild Rice, and Game in Abundance: Testimony on Behalf of Mille Lacs Ojibwe Hunting and Fishing Rights by James M. McClurken with contributions by Charles E. Cleland, Thomas Lund, John D. Nichols, Helen Tanner and Bruce White.
Published in 2000 following the Mille Lacs Band’s success in arguing their treaty-reserved rights to off-reservation hunting and fishing were not extinguished in the past by various federal actions, the book presents the detailed research and arguments of a team of ethnohistorians that demonstrated, among many things how, where, and when hunting, fishing and gather activities continued to be a part of the daily lives of the Milles Lacs Anishinabe community, including maple sugaring.
The result of an extensive and very comprehensive examination of publications in the collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin covering travel reports, natural history, and first hand narrative accounts in journals, diaries, and correspondence.
To the uninitiated, the collections of the library and archives of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin are an amazing and extensive treasure trove of information. I would even go so far as to call it the single greatest public library dedicated to history in the United States.
Volume I of the bibliographies contains 72 entries in chronological order spanning a period from 1634 to 1895. Volume II contains 147 entries spanning a period beginning in 1534 and ending in 1933. Each volume of the bibliographies contains an index at the end. The individual entries include a full bibliographic reference and a verbatim quote or excerpt of the notable and relevant text that addresses something related to the presence of maple trees or the use of maple products in the past. The vast majority of entries are focused on accounts of the early use of maple sap or manufacture of maple sugar and maple syrup by Native Americans, fur traders, and early settlers in Canada and New England. In addition, some entries have very brief notes or annotations to help explain some of the context or broader content of the specific publication in reference.
There is nothing especially unique about any of the entries in and of themselves since one will see most of these references repeated in other contexts and publications and one can discover these references through an exhaustive search of one’s own. However, what is handy and useful is having them published and indexed in a precise chronological form for easy use and reference.
Henry A. Schuette in 1940 when President of the American Oil Chemist’s Society.
The primary author of these bibliographies was Henry A. Schuette, a food chemist and professor of chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In addition to his laboratory work, Schuette had a special interest in the history of foods and spent a great deal of his spare time in the historical society library on the campus of the University of Wisconsin. Schuette also encouraged his students to investigate and better understand the history of food as a context for their food chemistry research.
One such doctoral chemistry student who took Professor Schuette’s encouragement to heart was Aaron J. Ihde who later went onto to himself become a notable chemist and food historian and professor at the University of Wisconsin. Ihde collaborated with Schuette on the second volume of the bibliography. The secondary author to the first volume of the bibliography was Sybil C. Schuette, who was a librarian in Wisconsin and presumably a relative of Henry A. Schuette.
For those hoping to learn more about the early accounts and descriptions of maple sugaring by our Euro-American and Native American ancestors, these bibliographies are a great introduction to the literature. And as noted above, for those already interested in the early records and accounts of the use and production of maple sugar and maple syrup, these bibliographies are a useful collection to have in one’s reference library.
This article originally appeared in a 2004 edition of the Wisconsin Maple News.
Plastic tubing and vacuum pumping continue to grow in popularity in Wisconsin sugarbushes with a few more miles added every year. But long before the invention of plastic tubing in the late 1950s, early twentieth century Yankee farmers wanting to reduce the labor of gathering sap invented a metal gravity-fed pipeline system that carried sap directly from the tree to the sugarhouse. This metal pipeline system consisted of three sizes of tubing, each constructed from long narrow sheets of English tin folded and crimped at the top and slightly tapered at the end to be inserted tightly into another piece of tubing. The system also included spiles made from conical sheets of tin with a metal tube soldered to the bottom like a drop line. The spile was either inserted directly into openings on the top of pipeline or into connecting pieces that fit into the pipeline. This connection from the spile to the tubing was made by a shorter, tapered piece of tubing with a curve at the narrow end, similar in appearance to the neck of a goose. In fact, it was this piece that gave this system its common name of “gooseneck system”. The weight of the rigid metal pipeline was supported by heavy gauge wire strung through the woods, with a hook at one end of each piece of tubing to hang the tubing on the support wires.
The gooseneck system in use in a Vermont sugarbush circa 1930. Source: Vermont Maple Sugar and Syrup, Bulletin 38.
The gooseneck system was patented in 1916 near the village of Mayfield, New York along the southern margins of Adirondack State Park by William H. Brower, Jr. Brower, who was described by his grandson as a mechanic and tinkerer, developed the system with his neighbor and syrup maker, Edward L. Lent. Today, the workshop where it was invented still stands on land owned by the Lent family and is noted by a roadside historic marker. According to Lent family history, Brower and Lent later sold the patent to one of the larger Vermont maple syrup equipment makers. Amazingly, through four generations of syrup making, the Lent family has never stopped using the gooseneck system. At one time, the Lent family’s mountainside sugarbush was using as many as 2500 taps on the system and boiling on a 3 foot by 16 foot wood fired evaporator. In recent year the family has reduced their tapping to around 300 to 400 taps and downsized to a 2 foot by 10 foot evaporator. According to the Lent family, the metal pipeline will occasionally freeze during cold spells, but thaws out quickly on south and east facing hillside of the their sugarbush. At the end of the season, the network of support wire is left strung through the sugarbush but the tubing is taken down. The pipeline sections are washed and boiled in the evaporator in the last sap of the year then set upright to dry, coating them with a thin layer of sugary sap that prevents rust from developing in the off season.
The late Edward Lent, grandson of Edward L. Lent, tapping trees for gooseneck system in Lent family sugarbush in March 2002.
The gooseneck system was sporadically used during the 1920s and 1930s in the more hilly and mountainous sugarbushes of northeastern United States. Until recently, this technology was not known to have made it as far west as Wisconsin. However, in 2003, cultural resource management staff of the USDA Forest Service in Wisconsin discovered the long abandoned remains of a maple sugaring operation in the hills of southwestern Ashland County. The remains of this former sugarhouse and storage building included over one thousand, four-foot long sections of the tubing system, as well as the gooseneck connecting pieces, coils of suspension wire and other debris. Today the site appears as a series of building foundations in an overgrown clearing at the base of a maple covered ridge, a perfect location of the gravity fed pipeline system.
A fallen over stack of thousands of sections of metal pipeline at the remains of an abandoned sugarbush on the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest, southern Ashland County, Wisconsin.
Based on the age of the other artifacts at the site, including three sizes of metal syrup tins, the use of this sugarbush roughly dates to between 1915 and 1930. The U.S. Forest Service acquired the land in 1934, shortly after it had been logged and most of the large mature maple trees removed. As the only known example of the use of the gooseneck system in Wisconsin, the Forest Service has recognized its historical importance and is protecting the site as part of planned forest management activities. In addition, research into the history of the site and use of the pipeline continues.
This article originally appeared in a 2003 edition of the Wisconsin Maple News.
In the late summer of 1951 while working as a forester for the Northern Highland State Forest in Vilas County, a young Ted Peterson discovered a maple sugaring camp in an old growth forest of sugar maple and yellow birch on what he thought was state forest land. Noting a large flat pan resting on a sturdy stone and earth arch and a very old upside-down copper kettle sitting inside half of a birch bark covered wigwam, Peterson made a note to himself to come back the following spring to find out just whose sugarbush this was.
Returning the following April with his camera in hand, Peterson came upon a nicely cleared path through the snow leading to the evaporator and wigwam he witnessed the summer before. Only this time the sugar camp was in full operation with steam rising from the flat pan, metal pails hanging from every maple, and a middle aged Potawatomi Indian couple tending the fire and gathering the sap. Realizing he was an uninvited guest, Ted Peterson quickly introduced himself to the proprietors, Rose and Pete Johnson.
Pete Johnson tending the fire and watching the boil on his flat pan and stone arch (photo courtesy of Ted Peterson and the Lac du Flambeau Tribal Historic Preservation Office).
Fascinated by what he saw in front of him, Peterson wanted to know more and began to ask one question after another to the Indian man tending the fire under the flat pan. But Pete Johnson was very short with his answers, aw he was not sure who this man really was and why he was there. Johnson also knew that there was a longstanding disagreement between the Escanabas, his wife’s family and landowners, and the state of Wisconsin over the ownership of the woods they were tapping and land on which they lived. Not daunted by the Mr. Johnson’s cool reception, Peterson pressed on, taking pictures and asking questions about the boiling process, tapping the trees, and the layout of their sugarbush. Not seeing any thermometers or hydrometers, Peterson asked Pete Johnson how he knew when the syrup was done, to which Johnson replied that it was finished when it tastes right and when it feels right.
A short distance away from the stone arch and flat pan was the half wigwam where Peterson found Rose Johnson tending a small fire under the old copper kettle. The Johnsons often set as many as 500 taps each spring, and Peterson soon realized that in addition to making syrup, the Johnson’s were making sugar. If fact, the majority of the sap they gathered ultimately went into making maple sugar. It was at the hands and direction of Mrs. Johnson that as much as 160 pounds of sugar was made every spring in the large copper trade kettle, handed down from earlier generations. In observing Mrs. Johnson boil the syrup for sugar, Peterson noted that she would rub the inner rim of the kettle with deer tallow, and each time the bubbling mass of thick syrup foamed up it would touch the grease near the rim and settle back down. Traditional defoamer! When the syrup has thickened to the right consistency and bubbles, the kettle was taken off the fire and the maple molasses was spooned into metal sugar molds to cool into sugar cakes. Not having electricity or an icebox in their cabin, the Johnsons kept most of the more easily stored sugar for home consumption. Much of the 150 gallons of syrup that they made each spring was sold in stores in Eagle River, Star Lake, Rhinelander, and Lac du Flambeau, providing much needed cash to an otherwise subsistence lifestyle.
View of the half wigwam structure for sugar making at the Johnson’s Partridge Lake Sugarbush (photo courtesy of Ted Peterson and the Lac du Flambeau Tribal Historic Preservation Office).
Rose Johnson’s parents, John and Mary Escanaba, settled on the north shore of Partridge Lake in 1904, after a smallpox epidemic broke up their Potawatomi village at nearby Indian Lake. At that time, John Escanaba made a deal with a man from the sawmill in Star Lake to obtain title this 40 acres parcel from the Goodyear logging company in exchange for nine ponies. Unfortunately, John Escanaba passed away the following year and the piece of paper they received in exchange was not actually the deed, being a worthless piece of paper. In spite of that, the Escanabas never left, resisting efforts to move them to the Potawatomi Reservation instead choosing to maintain a traditional lifestyle in which they fed and clothed themselves from the land and their labors. Pete Johnson came to the Partridge Lake settlement in 1914 when he married Rose Escanaba, where along with Rose’s mother Mary, they raised their family. Although they maintained their traditional religious beliefs and a traditional gathering, farming, and hunting lifestyle, the Escanabas and Johnsons did not necessarily shun technological improvements. Sometime before the 1920s, they stopped boiling sap in kettles and began to boil sap in a large iron flat pan. They also abandoned the use of wood taps and birch bark containers, shifting to metal taps and sap cans. Every few years they would move their camp to another location in these woods to allow some of the trees in their sugarbush a rest and they only removed the non-maples and the sick and damaged for firewood.
Rose Johnson spooning warm soft maple sugaring onto metal sugar molds (photo courtesy of Ted Peterson and the Lac du Flambeau Tribal Historic Preservation Office).
Pete Johnson died in the 1960s and Rose in the 1970s, but not before the family obtained title to their home and traditional sugarbush. The family continues to own and occupy the homestead and sugarbush and has made syrup in the woods as recently as the early 1990s.
Ted Peterson later went on to become an extension forester with the late Fred Trenk at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where he spent many years as a conduit for new information and technology on syrup making to Wisconsin maple producers. Before his retirement in 1990, Peterson provided important operational support to the Wisconsin Maple Syrup Producers Association working hard with producers, striving to improve production and quality. But it was his 1952 encounter with a Potawatomi family in the woods of Vilas County where he received his one of his first lessons on maple syrup production.
This article originally appeared in a 2004 edition of the Wisconsin Maple News.
For some the origins of the Wisconsin Maple Syrup Producers Association can be traced back to the formation of the Northwoods Maple Cooperative in Antigo in the early part of the twentieth century. But the Antigo Co-op was not the state’s only maple syrup association in the 1930s. Other maple producers were organizing in the western side of the state. With the help of county extension agent H.G. Seyforth, a group of Pierce County maple syrup makers formed a cooperative known as the Pierce County Maple Syrup Producers Association.
Due to the distance from large urban markets, Pierce County maple producers in the early part of the twentieth century tended to produce only as much maple syrup and sugar as they could sell or trade to local merchants and businesses for goods and services. With the belt tightening following the Great Depression, maple producers in the area found it increasingly difficult to sell this specialty food and were admittedly poorly equipped and not very interested in knocking on doors to sell their syrup. As they would freely admit, they were farmers not salesmen. Extension agent Seyforth had a solution – develop a maple syrup cooperative. During the 1920s and 1930s, the state Department of Agriculture and Markets routinely promoted the formation of agricultural cooperatives as a means to obtain greater selling power for their products and greater buying power for necessary supplies and equipment.
According to his annual reports, Seyforth promoted the cooperative idea in the winter of 1931 and 1932 when local maple producers gathered for a series of meetings held by state officials to present new state syrup grading guidelines. On February 17, 1932, the county association formally came into being at a meeting in the village of Rock Elm. One of their first marketing challenges was the production of syrup of uniform quality and appearance. The members quickly realized that individually they were each producing a range of syrup grades. In order to establish sufficient stock and more consistent grades, they began blending some of their syrups. They also realized that the boiling set-up of most association members was insufficient to consistently produce high quality uniform grades of syrup. Through the buying power of the cooperative, some producers were able to better afford to buy new and improved equipment, with some replacing their old flat pans with new commercial evaporators. The cooperative also starting making large orders of maple syrup equipment, buying glass and tin containers in bulk directly from the manufacturers at much reduced prices.
One of the Co-ops significant marketing strategies was the establishment of a display and sales booth at the state fair in Milwaukee, complete with examples of the various syrup grades and models of a modern evaporator and sugarhouse. In addition to selling syrup in bottles and tins of sizes ranging from one ounce to one gallon, the association sold sugar wrapped in wax paper, candies and a soft sugar called maple spread. In its first year at the fair, the Pierce County booth took the first place award in its class while selling forty gallons of maple syrup and thirty-five pounds of maple sugar.
Photo of the Pierce County Maple Producers Association 1932 state fair booth (photo courtesy of the University of Wisconsin, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Archives).
In its second year, the Pierce County Maple Producers Association developed and printed its own labels, one each for the three different syrup grades recognized in Wisconsin at that time, namely Fancy, No. 1, or No.2. Each multi color label displayed a scene of a log cabin in a snow covered woods with sap pails on each tree under the name North Woods Maple Syrup and banner reading “Pure as Nature Made it”. The specific grade was printed in the middle of each label above the name and town of the syrup maker. By the mid 1930s, the marketing program was a working and the association was becoming more widely known and respected including sending a group of representatives to Marshfield to participate in early, albeit unsuccessful, attempts to establish a statewide maple producer’s association.
Example of the North Woods Maple Syrup label from 1933. Original in three colors (photo courtesy of the University of Wisconsin, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Archives).
Encouraged by the success of the association as a way to sell their surplus syrup, cooperative members had the incentive to maintain and increase production. Through the 1930s and 1940s, Pierce County continued to be one of the largest syrup producing counties in the state, consistently ranked fifth in maple syrup production in Wisconsin, after Marathon, Shawano, Langlade, and Clark Counties. However, interest in the association began to slip, and for most of the 1940s Pierce County maple producers were largely on their own until state extension forester Fred Trenk brought the maple institutes to the area in the 1950s and assisted with the successful formation of a statewide maple producers council in 1954.
At its peak, the General Foods contract had Reynolds Sugar Bush shipping twenty-seven tanker loads (108,000 gallons) of syrup from Aniwa to Chicago. At that time in history, moving this volume of maple syrup out of a midwestern hub rather than New England or Quebec was a significant departure from how the maple industry had traditionally operated. Reynolds continued this contract with General Foods for 20 years until General Foods reduced the amount of maple syrup in their Log Cabin blend from 15% in 1959 to 2% by 1979. After the General Foods Corporation merged with Philip Morris in 1985 the previous contract arrangements were no longer honored and Reynolds Sugar Bush stopped supplying maple syrup to General Foods.
From oldest to newest, first we have the book When the Sugar Bird Sings: The History of Maple Syrup in Lanark County by Claudia Smith. Published in 1996, this great little book features the history and stories of maple sugar and syrup making in and around Lanark County, Ontario. It is illustrated with numerous historic photos of Lanark County maple operations and boasts of Lanark County as the Maple Capital or Ontario. While out of print, this book can be found used online at such sources as 
Published in 2000 following the Mille Lacs Band’s success in arguing their treaty-reserved rights to off-reservation hunting and fishing were not extinguished in the past by various federal actions, the book presents the detailed research and arguments of a team of ethnohistorians that demonstrated, among many things how, where, and when hunting, fishing and gather activities continued to be a part of the daily lives of the Milles Lacs Anishinabe community, including maple sugaring.
