It’s maple sap season in Indiana
Before the birds and the bees return, before the flowers bloom and the grass grows, one of the first signs of spring is the return of the sap.
Maple sap, that is. Every year around early to mid-March, if you poke a maple tree, you will find it’s got something special inside that’s sweet and alive. Something called sap.
And area parks and educators will celebrate that sap with events like the Indiana Dunes National Park’s 41st annual Maple Sugar Time festival, happening this year from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at Chellberg Farm in Porter.
Park ranger Rafi Wilkinson of the Indiana Dunes National Park said that this is one of the longest-running events.
“As part of the Chellberg’s operations, they did maintain a maple sugaring operation, including a sugar shack, and so we have a working sugar shack,” he said.
“So we give the public a guided tour of how maple sugaring was done over the ages, from Native Americans to early European settlers up to the modern methods, including using electric pumps to deliver sap to a centralized location. And obviously, there is maple syrup to try and kids activities as well. It’s a really good family event.”
Trees are tapped by drilling a hole and inserting a spile, or metal spout.
The spile holds a bucket and helps the sap drip into the bucket. The sap is collected and cooked until most of the water has boiled off. What you are left with is maple syrup.
However, it takes about 40 to 50 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup.
People will be able to see the process of making syrup and get to taste it. Goodies will be for sale in the farmhouse.
Another large component that typically the public doesn’t see, Wilkinson said, is the hundreds of school kids from all over the region who go through educational programs during the maple sugaring weeks in March.
Ideal conditions are freezing temperatures at night and daytime temps in the 40s for the sugar to flow, he said.
“So far this year, we are having a pretty good flow,” he said.
“It’s always been a family-friendly festival to get people outside and to learn about the importance of maple syrup and maple sugaring for a source of food and a treat dating back to the Native Americans in the area.”
The Indiana Dunes National Park’s 41st annual Maple Sugar Time festival at the Chellberg Farm includes one-hour tours that start every 20 minutes each day where guests will learn about tapping maple trees. They’ll also get a crash course on how to make maple syrup at home and how modern maple sugar farmers use advanced technology to make syrup today.
They’re invited to the sugar shack where sap is boiled down the way the Chellberg family did it in the 1930s. People can try to drill a tap hole and lug sap buckets using an old-fashioned yoke. Everyone gets to enjoy a free taste of pure maple syrup.
Pure maple syrup and sugar and products like maple-flavored popcorn and maple water will be for sale on site.
Participants will meet in front of the gift shop on the hour from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. to experience this free program. Staff will be in the park explaining how maple trees are tapped. Then guests can head over to the sugar shack to see how the sap that has been collected is changed into maple syrup.
Guests can even make a mokuk craft, one of the most primitive containers for carrying sap. The 30-minute film “Maple Syrup Farmer” will be shown at 11:30 a.m., 1:30 and 3:30 p.m. below the gift shop (which will be selling popcorn.)
The historic grist mill will be open, and people can watch the miller as he grinds corn into stone-ground cornmeal.
The gift shop will also be open for guests to purchase maple syrup, maple candy and maple tea, as well as spiles to start their own backyard sap collecting.
PREVIOUS ARTICLE
