No one is really sure just how long people have been practicing the art and science of making this wonderful product from the sap of a tree. However there are two basic schools of thought about the origin of maple syrup. The first group identifies with Indian legend and lore that maple syrup and maple sugar was being made before recorded history. The second group maintains that the Indians did not have the technology or tools to perform the necessary boiling of sap to make either product let alone both.

The Indians have two wonderful stories about how they came to begin making maple syrup. The first is the legend of Glooskap. Many, many, many years ago the Creator had made life much easier for man. In fact, in those days the maple tree was filed with syrup and all man had to do was cut a hole in the maple tree and the syrup dripped out. One day the young prince Glooskap (known by other names in other tribes) came upon a village of his people that was strangely silent. There were no dogs barking, no children playing, no women minding the cook fires, and no men getting ready to go hunting! Glooskap looked and looked and finally found everyone in the nearby maple grove. They were all laying at the base of the trees and letting the sweet syrup drip into their mouths. Even the dogs were enjoying the syrup. "Get up, you people," Glooskap called. "There is work to be done!" But no-one moved.

Glooskap had special powers and he used these powers to make a large bark container and fly to the lake. He filled the container with water and flew back to the maple grove. When he poured the water over the trees it diluted the syrup so it was no longer sweet. "Now, get up you people! Because you have been so lazy the trees no longer hold syrup but hold sap. Now you will have to work for your syrup by boiling the sap. What’s more the sap will soon run dry. You will only be able to make syrup in the early spring of the year!"

This legend is very unique in that it can be found almost universally throughout the Eastern Woodland Indian tribes. This is very unusual for a culture that did not use a written history. Perhaps a more believable story is that of the Indian woman named Moqua. The story was recounted in the April 1896 issue of The Atlantic Monthly by Vermonter Rowland E. Robinson. The story goes that Moqua was cooking a prime cut of moose for her husband, the hunter Woksis. However, Moqua became preoccupied with her quill-work and let the pot boil dry. Realizing she did not have time to melt some snow she used some maple sap she had been saving for a beverage. Woksis was so impressed with the meal he broke the pot so he could lick the last of the "goo" from the pot shards.

Although it is not a large group, there are those who believe that because the Indians did not have metal pots until after the first French explorers and missionaries arrived they could not have performed the boiling necessary to reduce sap to syrup. Instead, Carol I. Mason from the University of Wisconsin (Fox Valley) says that it was probably those very French explorers and missionaries who recognized the potential of that water dripping from maple trees. Both sides of this argument quote reports sent back to Europe as early at 1557. Unfortunately some of these reports were exaggerated or vague. Who really discovered maple syrup? No one can say for sure. One thing this writer would ask you to consider is the discussion in Betty Sodders’ book, Michigan Prehistory Mysteries, published in 1990 by Avery Color Studios, Au Train, Michigan, 49806. Sodders discusses something called The Copper Culture Riddle. In 1847 some 5000 year old copper mines were discovered in the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. This is obviously pre-history for Michigan. But if copper was mined at that time there were probably copper pots in which to boil things.

For a full discussion of this topic read chapter III of the book Sweet Maple by James Lawrence and Rux Martin, co-published by Chapters Publishing Ltd. And Vermont Life magazine.

One thing the reader must understand - virtually all of the syrup makers were self sufficient dairy farmers who made syrup and sugar during the off season of the farm for their own use and for extra income. These farmers were and continue to be folks who look at a process and say to themselves, "There has to be a faster, more efficient, easier way to do this." In about 1864 a Canadian borrowed some design ideas from sorghum evaporators (You don’t know what sorghum is? It is what us Northerners call molasses.) and put a series of baffles in the flat pans to channel the boiling sap. The ideas continued to flow. In 1872 a Vermonter developed an evaporator with two pans and a metal arch or firebox which greatly decreased boiling time. Seventeen years later, in 1889, another Canadian bent the tin that formed the bottom of a pan into a series of flues which increased the heated surface area of the pan and again decreased boiling time.

For the most part technology stayed at this point for almost another century. By the 1960’s, however, was no longer a self sufficient enterprise with large families as farm hands. Because syrup making is so labor intensive a farmer could no longer afford to hire the large crew it would take to gather all the buckets and haul the sap to the evaporator house. Finally when the energy crunch of the 1970’s occurred syrup makers responded with another surge of technological breakthroughs. Tubing systems, which had been experimented with since the early part of the century, were perfected and the sap came directly from the tree to the evaporator house. Vacuum pumps were added to the tubing systems. Pre-heaters were developed to "recycle" heat lost in the steam. Reverse-osmosis filters were developed to take a portion of water out of the sap before it was boiled. Several producers even obtained surplus desalinization machines from the U.S. Navy and used them to take a portion of water out of the sap prior to boiling. In fact, one is still in use by a producer South-East of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

History is nothing without our learning lessons from it. Today the technological developments continue. Improvements continue in tubing. New filtering techniques, "supercharged" pre-heaters, and better storage containers have been developed. Research continues on pest control and improved woodlot management.

This has been a very general discussion of maple syrup and maple sugar making. For more detailed information check out the books listed in our reference page.