How sweet it is

The excitement has been literally bubbling over this week as we prepared for the hundreds of visitors to the Landing for the Annual Maple Sugar event. The weather couldn't have been better.

Minnesota is the farthest West you can go and still produce Maple Syrup in the United States. Native Americans tapped into this treasure, and we try to interpret the importance of the sugar to our visitors. Our sugar maples literally gushed with sap, and the snowstorm held off until a day after the event. It was a great Minnesota day--temps in the 40s and a beautiful sky. The next day, we had 5-inches of snow on the ground and were under a heavy snow advisory.

Visitors got a trip to the sugar bush, where they tapped a tree. Kids then hauled back a bit of sap in buckets to the cauldron we had boiling outside the Fairbault cabin. Here, I worked with the Queen of the Sugar Shack, Pauline, to teach kids and adults how Native Americans made sugar from the sap. (Some might recognize Pauline from the Christmas edition of pictures. There, she was the Swede who taught about krumkake, tomtes, and the julebakka.) I am proud to say we didn't even scorch one batch! Back when, Indians sometimes ate a pound of the sugar a day as part of their diet. When the winter lasted longer than the food supply, they could even cut parts of the maple tree to eat.

Then, visitors journeyed next door to our German neighbors, the Bergers. There, they watched as interpreters made several recipes from the syrup. Kids got to stuff matresses, grind corn, sort beans, and do several spring chores. We had 19th century games at several locations throughout the site as well as 19th century music.

Kids and adults got to taste the sap, sugar, and syrup at a series of stations... so by the time the kids left they were moving a bit faster and were quite a bit muddier.