Maple Syrup Family Tradition

         

My family began making maple syrup in 1918 in the sugar bush we produce our maple syrup in today. That is just on the land we still own; my family began making it in the late 1800s in a different sugar bush. Back when these pictures were taken, they were still using wooden barrels to collect the sap that would run out of the trees. The sugar shack where they would boil down the sap to make syrup was built in 1945. Prior to that they would boil in the middle of the woods on a flat pan. We continue to boil in the original sugar shack, but we use more efficient technology than what they had at the time.