The History of Maple Syrup Through Technology
Maple syrup is a national Canadian symbol that is enjoyed on an international level. The versatile victual can be poured over fresh pancakes, used in coffee, baked into muffins or cooked with salmon. This sweet treat is only available because of the technologies used to produce it. Here is a look at the history of maple syrup production through the vital technological advances.
Maple syrup begins with maple sap. Sap was discovered by the indigenous peoples of the Maple Belt. There is no official account of its discovery, but there are various legends.
One popular Iroquois legend tells the story of a chief who pulled his axe from a maple tree as he went hunting one day. As the weather warmed, sap dripped from the gash and into a vessel at the base of the tree. The chief’s wife saw the vessel full of liquid and used it to boil meat for their supper. This created a sweet smell and taste as the water boiled down to create maple syrup.
The indigenous peoples collected the sap by cutting “V” shapes into maple trees. They placed birch bark or pottery bowls at the base of trees to collect the sap. This method was taught to early settlers when they arrived in North America in the late 1500s.
In the late 1700s and early 1800s, maple sugar production developed as settlers became involved in the process. One of the changes they brought to the collection process was the wooden sap spile. Cutting into the tree accidentally killed it. Instead, maple producers drilled holes into the trees and inserted the spiles. The spile ensures the trees continue to produce sap for the following maple seasons. Today, plastic or metal spiles are used more than wooden ones.
Settlers also introduced new vessels for collecting sap. They began to use tin buckets around 1880. Similar buckets are still used by smaller maple producers today. However, most operations use variations of a plastic pipeline system.
The first plastic pipeline system appeared in 1959. This method uses a vacuum system to collect sap into holding tanks. The sap is collected from the tanks and brought back to production facilities to be turned into the sweet treat. It replaces any need for spiles and buckets.
The evaporation process is important because this is how sap turns into syrup. During the first few centuries of its discovery, this process took a very long time. To boil off the water, First Nations poured sap into a carved wooden trough and cooked it using heated rocks. They also cooked it over fires in birch bark vessels.
When settlers arrived in the Maple Belt, they brought cast iron pots. This new technology made the evaporation step shorter, but still lengthy. According to Claude Gosselin at Kings Landing, it takes 24 hours to turn sap into maple syrup in the cast iron pots. For other maple treats like taffy and butter, at least another six hours of boiling are required.
Another development to decrease evaporation time came in the form of a large metal pan in the late 1800s. This method was faster because the sap is spread out and there is more surface area to be heated. The metal pan influenced the early models of evaporator machines. Inventors patented various models over the next few decades to further efficiency.
In the 1970s, producers started to use reverse osmosis to separate the sugar in the sap from the water. The size and power of these machines depends on the size of the operation.
While maple syrup production technology has changed over the centuries, the overall process is the same. After the sap has been collected and the water has been evaporated, only pure liquid gold remains to be savored and enjoyed.
A Look at a Local Maple Farm
Dumfries Maples is a small commercial maple operation in Dumfries, NB owned by siblings Nathan and Jane Scott. They use both spiles and buckets and the vacuum pipeline system. A visit here during maple season allows guests to see how maple syrup is made and the journey it goes through from tree to plate.
[slideshow_deploy id=’914′]
