• Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to secondary sidebar

New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • Adirondacks & NNY
  • Capital-Saratoga
  • Mohawk Valley
  • Hudson Valley & Catskills
  • NYC & Long Island
  • Western NY
  • History
  • Nature & Environment
  • Arts & Culture
  • Outdoor Recreation
  • Food & Farms
  • Subscribe
  • Support
  • Submit
  • About
  • New Books
  • Events
  • Podcasts

This Weekend In A New York Sugar Shack

March 19, 2021 by John Warren Leave a Comment

Mike Todriff of Chestertown fires a vintage sugar boiler this week by Shannon HoulihanIt’s that time of year. The sap is running and the buckets and tanks are filling. Backyard syrup makers large and small have been taking advantage of the recent sugaring weather to fire their arches and settle into the ancient and accepted rite of watching the boil.

Whatever you call it – a sugar party, sugaring-off, maple days – people will gather this weekend in old sugar shacks across Upstate New York around rising steam for one of the great revelries of the season.

You can guarantee there will be food. Pancakes and sweet breads and coffee sweetened with syrup (and maybe a little nip to get the day started right). There’ll be sausage or maybe a pork loin, and probably a nice smoked fish caught before the ice went out. There’ll be jack-wax on snow in bare hands. Syrup and hot dogs.

There’ll be jokes, and kids and stories of seasons past. That time Mike, in his cups at an early hour, nearly tottered into the pan. Voices raised about wood-splitting competitions. There will be line tightening and bucket gathering, temperature taking and fire stoking. Standing around a steaming pan of sap there will be quiet talk and shuffling feet. The occasional “it’s really boilin’ now” and “it’s gettin’ there” – the poetry of the sugar maker.

There’ll be scientific discussions. Great debates on the efficacy of only-dreamed-of labor saving contraptions. Long back-and-forths over sugar content, hydrometers and hydraulics; the relative merits of the gravity feed and vacuum pressure; and boisterous battles over the BTUs of the wood supply.

Boiling maple syrup is as much science as it is art of story-telling, sticky sweet poetics, and sittin’ round the steam.

Photo: Mike Todriff of Chestertown fires a vintage sugar boiler (photo by Shannon Houlihan).

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Filed Under: Nature, Recreation Tagged With: Maple Sugaring, Maple Trees

About John Warren

John Warren is founder and editor of the New York Almanack. He's been a media professional for more than 35 years with a focus on history, journalism and documentary production. He has a master's degree in Public History and is on the staff of the New York State Writers Institute, a center for literary arts based at the University at Albany. John lives in the Adirondack Park. His weekly Adirondack Outdoors Conditions Report airs across Northern New York on the North Country Public Radio network.

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Help Support Our Work

Subscribe to New York Almanack

Subscribe! Follow the New York Almanack each day via E-mail, RSS, Twitter or Facebook updates.

Recent Comments

  • Miguel Hernandez on Underrepresented Voices of the American Revolution Conference July 14-16
  • John Tepper Marlin on The Real Gilded Age: America’s Elite at Staatsburgh
  • Thomas Hughes on 1920s KKK Recruiting Efforts in Northern New York
  • Bob Meyer on 1920s KKK Recruiting Efforts in Northern New York
  • Thomas Hughes on 1920s KKK Recruiting Efforts in Northern New York
  • Bob Meyer on 1920s KKK Recruiting Efforts in Northern New York
  • Gordon Mason on NYS Historic Barn Tax Credit Program Informational Session
  • David G Waite on Ellis Corners: Before Saratoga Spa State Park & SPAC
  • Eric braverman on Wall Street History: The Politics of New York’s First Banks
  • N. Couture on Haudenosaunee Creation Story & Sculptures with Emily Kasennisaks Stacey

Recent New York Books

ben franklins world podcast
Spaces of Enslavement and Resistance in Dutch New York
ilion cover
Spare Parts
new yorks war of 1812
a prison in the woods cover
Visitors to My Street
Greek Fire
Building THe Ashokan Reservoir
ilion book cover

Secondary Sidebar

preservation league
Protect the Adirondacks Hiking Guide