FAMILY TRAVEL
— by Deborah Williams
Early
Is A Great Time To Explore!
S
pring begins this month, al-
though we can never depend
on spring weather arriving si-
multaneously with the official arrival of
spring. But after our rough winter, it is
time to explore. family affair and often it is done on family
farms. Everyone offers tours, free samples,
and various maple products for sale. Some
offer wagon rides into the woods, pancake
breakfasts, and even maple syrup snow
candy.
Take advantage of spring break spe-
cials and the favorable Canadian exchange
rate in Toronto or Niagara Falls, Ontario.
Or indulge your sweet tooth and get out to
the country during the Maple Weekends.
Pretend it is summer and go to Splash La-
goon. Laughter is good for everyone and
there is no better place for lots of laughs
than Jamestown’s National Comedy Center. Did you know that the only place in
the world where maple syrup is produced
is Eastern Canada (Quebec and Ontario)
and Northeastern United States? Canada
produces two-thirds of the world’s supply,
and the rest comes from the United States.
It’s Maple Syrup Season
Every spring, members of the New
York State Maple Producers Association
invite families and friends into their “sug-
ar houses” to experience the world of pure
New York maple syrup. This year Maple
Weekends will be 10 am to 4 pm, March
23-24 and March 30-31.
There are 180 maple producers state-
wide and 54 in Western New York who par-
ticipate in this fun, free program designed
to educate the public about the wonders of
maple syrup. Maple sugaring is usually a
52 WNY Family March 2019
New York State is the second largest
producer of maple syrup in the country
after Vermont and the Sugar Maple is the
state tree of New York.
In the northern United States, Native
Americans were the first to harvest the
maple sap for nutritional use. Before the
arrival of European settlers in the 1600s,
many tribes had a long tradition of produc-
ing maple sugar.
The Algonquins used stone tools to
tap maple trees and harvest the energy-giv-
ing sugar. They would cook the maple sap
by placing hot stones directly into collect-
ing buckets. In the 17th century, European
colonists took advantage of the maple sap.
At the time, the boiling process was more
time consuming as the sap had to be trans-
ported by horses and oxen to a single loca-
tion. Once it arrived, the sugar was boiled
and then processed over a fire built in the
sugar shack.
March is sugaring season because the
warmer daytime temperatures and freez-
ing nights generate sap flow. The highest
quality sap flows at the beginning of the
season and has the highest sugar content.
Maple sap has high sugar content during
the winter because cold periods result in
the conversion of starch to sugar.
The process of collecting maple
sap has advanced since the Colonial Era
through the use of vacuum pumps and tub-
ing. A maple tree is tapped when it is at
least 30 years old.
Maple sap is nearly 98% water. This
means that although a maple tree can pro-
duce more than three gallons of sap per
day, it takes more than 40 gallons of sap
to produce just one gallon of pure maple
syrup.
A sugar shack or sugarhouse is a cab-
in-like structure that is louvered with hori-
zontal slats to let out the steam from the
sap evaporation.
The same family has owned Wright
Farm in Farmersville since 1840 and the
family has been producing maple syrup for
nearly 180 years.
“Our main purpose with the Maple
Weekends is education,” explained Robert
Wright who oversees the maple syrup op-
eration on the family dairy farm. “This is