Sap from maple trees starts to flow in New England around this time of year. March is the most important month for the more than 300 maple producers in Massachusetts as they create more than 70,000 gallons of syrup each year. This includes local Indigenous communities who take the process a step further and turn that syrup into sugar.
At a recent event in Saugus, Leah Hopkins, a member of the Narragansett Indian Tribe and the state’s Indigenous People’s partnership coordinator, showed hundreds of visitors how maple sugaring works.
“My 3-year-old saw me leaving this morning with all of my maple equipment and she said, ‘Mama, you’re gonna go make sugar. Can I come?’ ” Hopkins said. “She knows, because I’ve been bringing my children out into the maple groves since they were in utero.”
Maple syrup making is an ancient tradition that started with Indigenous communities in the Northeastern part of what is now North America. Many of those communities also made maple sugar from those harvests for thousands of years, said Hopkins. Some even have legends on how it was discovered.
Hopkins said the maple harvest is a community event for Native Americans.
In the past, this meant families lived where they were harvesting the sap in early spring. Maple sugaring allowed gatherers to keep the maple harvest for longer – without it spoiling. They’d use the sugar, but they also traded or sold it. In the colonial era, it was a valuable commodity and a good alternative to expensive imported sugar.
Colonists “would buy Native, just like we buy local today to support our local economies,” Hopkins said.
It takes around 40 gallons of sap to make just one gallon of syrup. To turn that liquid to sugar is an exact process.
Hopkins stood at a long table and watched a pot filled with dark brown maple syrup boil. Once it reached 250 degrees, she poured the syrup into a bowl and stirred it. As she stirred, the syrup slowly came to room temperature and turned into sugar.
Ivanna English was at the community event and watched Hopkins make the sugar.
“I think the ways that so much of everything has been commodified today has really removed us from connection,” English said.
Hopkins offered samples of the sugar once it was done. Josh Vogel eagerly tried it.
“It’s really tasty, kind of like molasses,” he said. “My family’s Jamaican, so similar to, you know, when you boil down cane sugar and turn it into molasses.”
Vogel loved watching the process. He said he especially appreciated learning from Hopkins how she and other Native Americans build connections with nature, like knowing when and how to tap for syrup.
“You certainly don’t get products like this, things that are as meaningful as this, when we’re just ignoring the schedule that the world around us has built,” Vogel said.
Making maple sugar has always been an important part of Hopkins’ life. She wants to continue that tradition. She took her oldest son to the maple groves for the first time just months after he was born. That moment stuck with her.
“I knew I had the responsibility and my husband had the responsibility to pass this down to this next generation, to care for these trees,” Hopkins said. “And that’s a big responsibility to shoulder. It’s not just passing the technical knowledge, it’s passing that relationship.”
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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