Maple Sugaring History and Native American Treaty Rights Research

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.

 

Sherman Holbert’s New Approach to Maple Syrup Making in Minnesota in the 1940s and 1950s

In the broader world of maple syrup making, Minnesota has always been viewed as something of a backwater, with obvious reasons. There are far fewer maple syrup makers in that state than most of the rest of the maple producing region and the size of operation and volume of syrup made is considerably less.

However, being on the periphery and outside of the core of the maple world can have the advantage of not being as conditioned by or concerned with conventional approaches, thus freeing one up to think and act a little differently.  One example of that from occurred in Minnesota in the 1940s and 1950s, where one man, Sherman Holbert, took a few risks and decided to try a different model for making maple syrup.

I was able to interview Holbert in 2002  at his Mille Lacs Lake home when he was in his late 80s to learn more about his maple operation and how it came to be, and just as quickly disappeared.

The article I wrote telling this story was recently published in the July 2018 edition of Minnesota History magazine. I am happy to share a PDF version of the article at this link here or by clicking on the image of the article above.

Print copies of the article and magazine can be purchased from the Minnesota Historical Society website.

 

A Collection of Early References to Maple Sugar and Syrup

Unbeknownst to many maple historians, a unique and valuable bibliographic collection of early references to maple sap, maple sugar and maple syrup appeared in 1935 an 1946 in the obscure publication Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy of Science, Arts, and Letters. 

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.

The first iteration, titled Maple Sugar: A Bibliography of Early Records was written by H.A. Schuette and Sybil C. Schuette and appeared in 1935 in volume 29 of the Transactions.

The second iteration, titled Maple Sugar: A Bibliography of Early Records. II written by H.A. Schuette and A.J. Ihde appeared in 1946 in volume 38.

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.

 

 

 

The Origins of the Maple Syrup “Nip” Bottle

Maple producers have been packing maple syrup into miniature glass bottles since at least the 1930s with many early bottles being used and marketed as trial-sizes or individual servings sample bottles to get people to try a particular brand. Folks not familiar with the flavor and taste of real maple syrup could buy or be given a sample size bottle to see if they liked it rather than jump in for a larger bottle. More recently small bottles of the 1.5 to 2.0 ounce sizes have been used and sold as more novelty bottles and complimentary favors for weddings, parties, businesses and as conveniently sized stocking stuffers.

Small 2.0 ounce sample size bottle in front of larger 12.0 ounce Highland Maple Syrup bottle.

The Cary Maple Sugar Company’s brand of Highland Syrup was bottling their syrup in 2.0 ounce minis since the late 1930s. At one point the company even devised a plan and set up for refillable bottles. Small sample size bottles would be distributed and sold at restaurants and hotels and then the satisfied customer could return to refill their small bottle at unique syrup dispenser.  Similar in appearance to a water cooler, a large glass jug of Highland Syrup was suspended upside down and the small empty Highland bottle was refilled through a spigot below.

Highland Maple Syrup dispenser for refilling 2.0 ounce sample size bottles.

Miniatures maple syrup bottles are sometimes referred to as nips which is a name that comes from the more common miniature hard alcohol bottles from which one might take a “nip” or small sip. The term “nip” supposedly has its origins in the word “nipperkin” which meant a small measure of spirits or a measure of alcohol less than a half pint. The word may also have come from the Low German and Dutch word of nippen which means to sip or taste. Hard alcohol nips in the form of miniaturized versions of popular and recognizable bottles and labels of spirits like whiskey, gin, vodka, and various liqueurs have been around since the early part of the 20th century.

Holbert’s Mille Lacs Maple Corp. “Northern Comfort” maple syrup 1/10th pint nip bottle from early 1950s.

In the late 1940s or early 1950s one particular maple syrup producer in Minnesota got the idea to create a novelty label for small bottles of syrup that was a play on the nip size and the name of a few popular and better-known whiskeys and bourbons. In a 2002 interview I conducted with the late Sherman Holbert, he shared that he had been bottling syrup for a few years in the late 1940s in whatever glass bottles he could find, since following the war, specialty glass was hard to come by. Holbert’s maple business, Mille Lacs Maple Products, often reused old pint and half pint liquor bottles for packing syrup, thoroughly cleaning and scraping off the labels before putting on his own maple syrup company labels.

Variation on the Mille Lacs Maple Corp. “Northern Comfort” maple syrup nip bottle.

His company was doing a great business selling small gift-size bottles for corporate clients when one day while removing the label from a used whiskey bottle the idea came to him to put the familiar shape and size of those small booze bottles to use and add a novelty name and label. Holbert’s first novelty label was “Old Grand Mom” playing off Old Grand Dad whiskey. He followed that with another label, which became the more popular “Northern Comfort” which was a play on the name of Southern Comfort whiskey.

Holbert’s maple syrup company was relatively short lived, ending in 1952 but the idea of novelty miniatures or nips using take-offs of popular whiskey and bourbon labels has continued to this day and the label of “Northern Comfort” stuck.

“A Nip of Northern Comfort” 1.6 ounce miniature bottle from American Maple Products Corp. out of Newport, Vermont
Maple Grove, Inc. 1.5 ounce “A Nip of Northern Comfort” miniature maple syrup bottle.

 

“A Nip of Northern Comfort” in the 1.7 ounce bottle size from the Smokey Kettle Maple Company of Grimsby, Ontario.

Other companies like Maple Grove, Inc. and American Maple Products in Vermont have used the “A Nip of Northern Comfort” label on novelty, nip-sized bottles in the past, and it is still used today by the Smokey Kettle Maple Company out of Ontario.

The Reynolds Sugar Bush used “Sudden Discomfort” as their own unique take on it. In addition to “Sudden Discomfort”, Reynolds Sugar Bush had a whole line up of novelty labels including Old Croak, Old Polecat, Old Grand Gag, Old Old Hound Dog, and Hawg & Hawg.

Today, most “nip” sized and shaped miniature syrup bottles are used as gifts and favors for guests to special events but their origins are actually in found in the bottom of an empty whiskey bottle.

Reynolds Sugar Bush of Aniwa, Wisconsin’s take on the maple syrup nip bottle with the Sudden Discomfort label.

The Reynolds Sugar Bush used “Southern Discomfort” as their own unique take on it. In addition to “Southern Discomfort”, Reynolds had a whole line up of novelty labels including Old Croak, Old Polecat, Old Grand Gag, Old Hound Dog, and Hawg & Hawg. Interestingly, in his 1998 history of the family and its business Reynolds, Maple, and History: Fit for Kings,” Lynn Reynolds suggests that most of the ideas for novelty packaging, including the bottles “imitating beer, wines, liquors, and other beverages” came from his father Adin Reynolds. Unfortunately, this claim, which may in part be true, is not accompanied by any supporting dates or documentary evidence. Consulting the 1963, 1964 and 1967 equipment and sugar maker supplies catalogs in my collection from Reynolds Sugar Bush one does not find examples of novelty glass containers among the items offered, suggesting Reynolds’ sale and promotion of novelty nip bottles came at a later date.

Today, most “nip” sized and shaped miniature syrup bottles are used as gifts and favors for guests to special events but their origins are actually in found in the bottom of an empty whiskey bottle.

Books on Antique Maple Collectibles

One the most popular and enjoyable ways to learn and think about the history of maple syrup and maple sugar is through studying and collecting sugaring’s material remains. In other words, the artifacts, antiques, or collectables of maple sugaring, especially the portable and easily handled tools and equipment used by past maple producers. There is a small handful of books out there that can be helpful aids in the understanding and identification of the wide range and variety of maple sugaring antiques. In a previous post I highlighted a few more recent publications by Hale Mattoon and Jean-Roch Morin that emphasize the study and collection of spouts and spiles, as well as other maple artifacts.

Prior to the publishing of these excellent books, the best-known and most comprehensive guide to maple sugaring artifacts and antiques was the classic book Sugar-Bush Antiques by Virginia Vidler.  This book is long out of print but can be found for sale used on Amazon and at www.abebooks.com.

Virginia Vidler’s book is well illustrated with photos and descriptions of all the different sorts of collectable maple sugaring items related to maple sugaring in years past. Everything from sap collection containers, gathering pails and tanks, to evaporator pans and wood and tin molds, to packing tins, bottles, and jugs, to skimmers and paddles and syrup pitchers to paintings, photos, engravings, postcards, written reports and historic documents. Of course the very popular spouts and spiles are covered as well as.

Tools and equipment are divided into chapters focused on wooden-ware, tinware, and glassware, and with most every imaginable sort of sugaring item described and illustrated. This book is not a catalog of all known sugaring artifacts. There will always be unique and obscure examples of different types and varieties of sugaring items that catch the eye and interest of the collector. While the book is a bit dated with a 1979 publication date, it is a great addition to the shelf of anyone interesting in the material culture and collecting of maple-related antiques.

For the collector with a more narrow focused on the study of maple sugaring molds, there is a great little book by R.L. Séguin, itself now an antique, published in 1963 by the National Museum of Canada titled les moules du Québec.  Although the book is written entirely in French, it is very well illustrated with a great many examples of the kinds and types of molds one might find and collect from the past when making maple sugar was as much a part of the maple operation as making syrup.

Moules is the French word for molds, and the contents of the book includes all forms of maple sugar molds from the large multi-compartment trays to make small rectangular blocks, to tin and iron molds to make small cakes, to the artistic and block molds featuring animals and shapes, and other notable designs. Most interesting to me are the three-dimensional wooden molds that fit together like a locking puzzle to form solid blocks of sugar in the form of houses, books, bibles, fish, and birds.  While a little more difficult to find than the Vidler book, this too is a great addition to the reference materials for maple antique collectors. Plus it is just neat to study the artistry and craft that went into handwork of making these molds where nearly everyone was individual and unique.

There is also an interesting, well-illustrated section on sugar molds in Michel Lessard’s 1994 book, also written in French, titled Objets Anciens du Quebec: La vie domestique, which translates to Ancient Objects of Quebec: Domestic Life.

Lastly, it is worth noting that one can find information, including ballpark prices and values for many maple sugaring related artifacts in the mainstream antiques collectors guides, such as Linda Campbell Franklin’s 300 Years of Kitchen Collectibles.  Such guides are periodically updated for both content and price information, so it is best to find a more recent copy if using as a price guide. earlier guides are still great reference tools for recognizing and learning about various maple sugaring related artifacts.

Collectors will find that many artifacts and antique, especially specific to a brand or company are not represented in these guides. It is true that there is room for many more such guides and catalogs. Thankfully collectors like Hale Mattoon and Jean-Roch Morin have taken the initiative to assemble their collections and the collections of others into handy, useful, and informative books.  Hopefully we will see more publications like theirs in the years to come.

Maple King – My New Book is Ready!

I’m very excited to announce that a book I have been researching and writing for many years is finally finished and available for purchase from Amazon.com. The book is titled Maple King: The Making of a Maple Syrup Empire and traces the history of George C. Cary and his Cary Maple Sugar Company from its humble beginnings, through an amazing period of growth and industry domination, and on to its eventual collapse. The story also retells how the Cary Company absorbed the smaller Maple Grove Candies Company in the 1920s only to evolve and later split back into two companies in the 1950s. The Cary Company experienced a difficult future, while the Maple Grove  Company continued to evolve into today’s Maple Grove Farms, proving to be a strong and lasting company and brand.

The book follows the the story of George Cary and the Cary Company across 186 pages in seven chapters with over 70 photo, postcard, and map illustrations. The extensive research that went into telling the Cary story is documented in hundreds of endnote references to help future historians and satisfy the curiosity of those looking for more information. One-part company history, one-part biography, one-part maple syrup history, and one -part Vermont and St. Johnsbury history, the story has a little bit of everything for a wide range of readers.

Here is the description of the book from the back cover:

Like many North American industries in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the business of making maple sugar and syrup went through a period of maturation and modernization. Much of this change and new business model was influenced and controlled by one man and the company he created in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. George C. Cary and the Cary Maple Sugar Company grew in size and influence such that it controlled as much as 80 percent of the bulk maple sugar market, bestowing on Cary the title of Maple King and St. Johnsbury as the Maple Capital of the World. This book recounts the rise of the Cary Company and takes a closer look at who Cary was and the maple sugar and maple syrup empire that he created. As encompassing as the Cary Empire was, it overreached its limits and came tumbling to the ground with the stunning bankruptcy and death of its leader in 1931. However, Cary’s legacy did not die with him, and as told here, St. Johnsbury continued to have a significant place and role in the ever-evolving maple sugar and syrup industry.

This book is available for purchase from Amazon.com for $19.95. Get your copy today!

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.

The Gooseneck Metal Pipeline: Wisconsin’s First Tubing System?

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.

Matthew Thomas. “The Gooseneck Metal Pipeline: Wisconsin’s First Tubing System?” Wisconsin Maple News, 2004, volume 20, number 1, page 12.

 

A 1952 Visit to an Indian Sugabush

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.

Matthew Thomas. “A 1952 Visit to an Indian Sugarbush.” Wisconsin Maple News. 2003, volume 19, number 3, page 23.

Marketing Maple in the 1930s: The Pierce County Maple Syrup Producers Association

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.

Matthew Thomas. “Marketing Maple in the 1930s: The Pierce County Maple Syrup Producers Association.” Wisconsin Maple News, 2004, volume 20, number 2, page 7.