Local Maple

Everything you should know about the maple syrup industry in New York, published in Baked magazine’s Fall 2022 print issue

When Angela Ferguson needed an evaporator for the Onondaga Nation Farm’s first year of maple syrup production but didn’t think the Nation could afford a $12,000 piece of equipment during the pandemic, she reached out to a friend from the Seneca Nation, who had one no longer in use. He offered to trade the machine in exchange for 10 buffalo.

The chief who runs the Onondaga buffalo farm supported the trade, but because the machine was used, negotiated trading seven buffalo instead. 

“We’ve been trying to diminish the value of money, and using our food as currency is what we hold valuable,” said Ferguson, lead supervisor of Onondaga Nation Farm, which produces traditional foods to give back to the community free of charge.

New York state is the second largest producer of maple syrup in the United States, thanks to northeastern Indigenous tribes like the Onondaga, for whom maple tapping is a sacred, thousand-year long tradition. 

Whether it’s the origins of maple tapping, what happens on family-owned maple farms, or the health benefits of pure maple syrup, there’s a lot students should know about the industry thriving just outside Syracuse University.

Maple tapping is still central to Indigenous culture

Like all things in nature, said Joseph Bruchac, a writer and SU alum, it’s important to give thanks to the maple tree. 

Bruchac has been tapping maple trees ever since he was a little boy. A Nulhegan Abenaki citizen, Bruchac lives in the Adirondacks in the same house where his maternal grandparents raised him, and taught him how to tap maple trees. 

Now, Bruchac teaches native skills on his nature preserve, where he taught both his sons how to tap maple trees. 

“Being able to pass it on in your family is a very special thing,” Bruchac said. “You see the way things continue, that the cycle is not broken but there for the future.” 

Each year, as soon as the sap begins to flow, either the end of February or beginning of March, the Onondaga gather to celebrate the opening of the maple tree, drinking the freshly flowing sap and giving thanks for another season, Ferguson said. A closing ceremony occurs at the end of the season as well, she said. 

In 2021, Onondaga Nation Farm decided to implement a maple syrup program. Members of the Onondaga community have always tapped trees using old-fashioned methods, but Ferguson wanted to learn how modern farms tapped trees, using tubing, evaporators, and other machinery to increase efficiency. 

When Ferguson heard that Cedarvale Maple Syrup Co. was closing its doors, she asked the original owner, Karl Wiles, if the Onondaga Nation could come to the farm to learn how to tap trees the modern, more efficient way.

After acquiring the right equipment, Onondaga farm tapped over 600 trees its first season, enough for 120 elders, Ferguson said.

Of 2,000 maple producers in New York, many are family-owned

Cristy Williams grew up on the “fake stuff”—generic table syrup made with ingredients that most likely never saw a tree in its lifetime, she said. Until she met her husband, Nate, who tapped maple trees every year with his father, Dave. 

In 2014, the Williams’s decided to turn their family tradition into a family business. So, they started Dutch Hill Maple in Tully, New York, just 20 miles from SU and one of over 2,000 maple producers in New York state. 

“I can only think of a few farms that have employees,” said Helen Thomas, executive director of New York State Maple Producers, a nonprofit organization that promotes forest health, safe food practices, and conducts education and outreach programs. “The rest are families.” 

Jack Powers knew nothing about tapping trees before his son, David, was born with down syndrome. Powers, aware of the challenges his son would face in life, thought participating in a family business could teach him independence. A friend suggested maple tapping.  

Powers started with the maple trees in his backyard. He watched YouTube videos and met with local producers to check out their equipment and ask for advice. In its first year, Happy Jacks Maple in Locke, New York put in about 3,000 taps. Now, there are roughly 13,000, Powers said. 

Powers runs the farm with the help of his wife, Jennifer, his father Dwight, and David, now 13. 

“He’s grown with the business, and the business has grown with him,” Powers said. 

Powers also has two younger daughters, Brooke and Julia, who love helping at the farm whenever they can, usually bottling syrup, pressing buttons on machines, and applying labels. 

“And they love tasting,” he said.

Maple production is a year-round, 24/7 process

Modern syrup production is a time-sensitive, labor-intensive process, occurring over a period of a few short weeks in the spring, that involves collecting, removing water from, and finally boiling the sap to make delicious, golden maple syrup. 

Although maple is often considered a fall flavor, the tapping season actually takes place from the end of winter to early spring. Williams said her husband goes through the woods year-round to maintain the tubes and check for any damages from animals ahead of the tapping season. A lot of the fine tuning begins in the fall, she said. 

During the peak of the maple season, the Williams’s have alarms on their phones that go off whenever sap barrels are near full, which could be any time of night. 

“It’s more than sun up to sun down. It’s the middle of the night. It’s 24/7. It’s a very grueling six or so weeks,” she said.

Powers recalls a warm three-day period last year when he slept only an hour each day in a chair out in the barn. Because it was so warm, the sap was flowing and filling the tanks quickly. 

The speed at which tanks fill up, and the need to empty them and boil sap quickly, is why students at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry can’t commit to maple production in the Heiberg Memorial Forest, about a half hour drive from Syracuse.

Jill Rahn, forest research analyst for ESF’s Department of Forest Properties, oversees the school’s maple production, a tradition dating back to the ESF’s acquisition of the forest in 1948. All the proceeds from syrup sales in the university’s bookstore go directly to the alumni association and student scholarships, Rahn said. 

Students have opportunities to visit the forest during class field trips and can participate in the annual Maple Weekend in March, which ESF started to help students learn about the school’s maple production. But most students don’t have the flexibility in their schedule to help the department with tapping. 

“When you get a good day for the maple run, which is a warm day after a cold night with lots of sun, all of the sudden we’ll have 2,000 gallons of sap. We can’t let it sit around. We have to boil it right away,” said Bob McGregor, director of forest properties at ESF. 

Each farm usually has around a few thousand taps, all connected to barrels by a tubing system—not the traditional buckets one might envision, Thomas said. Once sap is collected, gallons of water are removed before it can be boiled to make delicious maple syrup. 

“I’ve seen pictures kids have drawn, and they think the syrup just comes out of the tree,” Thomas said. “They’re just not aware of how much water we have to remove.”

Pure maple syrup is healthier—and can go on anything

In Indigenous tradition, maple is often regarded as the first medicine of the spring, Bruchac said, because it has immense nutritious value. 

Powers gives his daughter, Brooke, who has type one diabetes, maple syrup to bring her blood sugar levels back to normal, and because maple is easily absorbed by the body, her sugar levels won’t spike again for a while, unlike if she had something less natural with high-fructose corn syrup, Powers said. 

Another benefit to pure maple syrup—it can go on anything. 

Maple syrup is a natural sweetener, and can replace white sugar in any recipe, Thomas said. Powers said his family likes candied baby carrots with maple syrup over the stove. 

“Put it on your vegetables. Put it on your pork. Put it on your ham. Make cocktails with it,” Thomas said. 

Farms and markets carrying local syrup include Tim’s Pumpkin Patch or CNY Farmer’s Market, local restaurants like Recess and Water Street Bagels, or any nearby grocery store like Tops or Wegmans. 

“There are a lot of families making their living off this, to help offset other career jobs, or other agricultural business,” Powers said. “It’s an important small business to have in New York.” 

But most importantly…

As a child, Powers said he never fully understood where his father, who worked at Auburn Steel Plant, disappeared to during the day, or how food appeared on the table. Now, he’s grateful his children know exactly what their father does, because they’re there to see for themselves. 

The best part of having a family-owned business, Williams said, is always having her two small children by her and her husband’s side. 

“It’s a different way of growing up. When you have your own business, it’s not a 9-to-5 job. The kids are seeing that lifestyle, but they’re also learning a lot from it. They know so much already, and they’re little,” she said. “Hopefully, if they’re interested, they’ll be running the place someday.”