![]() ![]() He wrote, “The Sellers boys and we went into the woods at the foot of the hill on the west side of Fort Holmes to gather maple sap. The perspective recorded by their 10-year-old son, Harold, was somewhat more candid. One day they tapped eleven trees and caught four gallons of sap.” The pleasure derived by father and sons was very great. She wrote, “Father instructed the boys how to tap the sugar maple in the woods, collect the sap, boil it down over an open fire, and test it to learn when it was ready to crystalize into sugar. Their mother, Fanny Dunbar Corbusier, later recorded the special memory. Corbusier, instructed his four young sons (along with those of Captain Edwin Sellers) in the age-old practice. On April 28, 1883, Fort Mackinac’s post surgeon, Dr. While most sugaring was done nearby, at least a few maples were tapped on Mackinac Island in the early 1880s. ![]() Sugar Maple near Mackinac Island’s Post Cemetery In the woods, maple sugaring season would often last through April, or even into early May. Most seasons, the straits would not be ice free until mid-April, when ship traffic could finally resume. Historically at Mackinac, colder weather usually persisted later into spring. As temperatures remain above freezing both day and night, pressure also drops inside trees, causing sap to slow and taps to dry up completely. When maple buds start to open, sap turns cloudy and assumes a bitter taste. Mind-boggling amounts of maple sugar were produced annually at the straits, with records of more than 200,000 pounds (100 tons) being shipped by Mackinac traders at in a single season.Īs the month of April 2023 winds down, Michigan’s maple sugaring season has already come to a close. Maple treats were also packed into wooden molds and decorative bark containers, sold for the local tourist trade. ![]() Typically, granulated sugar was packed into containers (mokoks), fashioned of birch bark, sewn together with spruce roots. It takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup, which can make about 8 pounds of sugar. Near the Straits of Mackinac, historical accounts show maple sugaring was especially common at nearby Bois Blanc Island and at L’Arbre Croche, along the Lake Michigan shore. Beaumont Museumįor countless generations, Anishinaabek residents have gathered sap from sugar maple trees each spring, boiling it into pure maple sugar. History of Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse. ![]()
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