A bucket full of sap
When we lived in Montreal, we visited a maple sugar shack outside the city one snowy March weekend. In the middle of a sugar maple tree grove, tin buckets hanged on all the trees, gathering sap. The “sugar shack” or, a cabana a sucre, is the traditional name for the location where they make the syrup – and some other yummy treats from the liquid goodness. Some have farm animals, horse-drawn sleigh rides and music and most have syrup-making demonstrations, shops with maple-flavored goods and restaurants with incredible all-you-can-eat, family-style breakfasts.
The shack we journeyed to had a restaurant that looked just like a summer camp dining hall. There were rows of tables with benches for seats and you just sat down wherever there was room and started passing the bacon, pancakes and maple syrup. It is one of my fondest memories of our time in Canada. We went with some good friends, had lots of laughs and even put moonshine in our coffee (offered by our generous, if not, tipsy, tablemates). Everyone was drizzling fresh maple syrup over their entire plate – potatoes, beans, sausage, pancakes – all of it. And it was heavenly (or maybe that homemade alcohol made it taste even better than it really was). We ate snow cones covered in syrup and maintained a high blood glucose level for several hours after. It was a quintessential Quebecois experience.
So, when I saw that Hamilton County Parks Department (outside of Indy) was doing a Maple Madness weekend, I jumped at the chance for my boys to experience the wonders of the sugar shack.
Sampling some maple sugar
It was located at a former farmstead that was donated to the parks department by the Bray Family. We arrived via a hayride, and they walked us through the steps of making maple syrup: tapping the trees, collecting the sap, then the long process of boiling it down to syrup (and heating it even longer for maple sugar). It takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup.
More sampling – syrup and maple candy
Boiling down the sap to make syrup
Most interesting, though, was that syrup was known as “Free Man Syrup” in Indiana because it was not made by slaves, as sugar was in the South. Quakers would not buy sugar because they were abolitionists, so they primarily used maple-based products as their sweetener. In fact, the farm we visited was part of the Underground Railroad.
After learning about the process of making syrup, we were able to taste, maple sugar, fresh syrup and maple candy — all two thumbs up from the boys. Most maple syrup you buy in a grocery store is made from corn syrup, not maple tree sap. There is a big difference in taste – we highly recommend “tree grown” syrup.
Making music on a washboard, dolly, tin bucket contraption
Unfortunately, there was no mess hall restaurant with breakfast, but like the sugar shacks of Canada, they had music. There was a guy playing music who had a ton of real and made-up instruments for people to play along with him. Who knew that a 2-liter plastic bottle filled with beans could be a percussion instrument or that hitting a spoon against a cheese grater was musical?
Sugar highs ensued. I recommend a hike or outdoor activity following a trip to a sugar shack, instead of going to Target.
