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>> Paul Rogovitch: Good  

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afternoon and welcome 
to History Sandwiched In.  

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And although it's mid-winter 
right now, it's not going to be  

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long before at least the days 
will be getting warmer and that  

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means maple sugar time. 
Today's speaker has come from  

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the MacKenzie Center up near 
Poynette.  

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It's a Department of Natural 
Resources education center.  

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It's huge and has so many 
things.  

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If you haven't visited it, 
you really should, you really  

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should. 
Especially around maple sugar  

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time, and she'll tell you when 
that is.  

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Our speaker is Ruth Ann Lee. 
Please, Ruth Ann,  

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let's all welcome her 
to History Sandwiched In.  

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Thank you. 
[APPLAUSE]  

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>> Ruth Ann Lee: Thank you. 
Today I'm honored to be here,  

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and all of you want to learn 
a little bit more about maple  

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sugar. 
At the MacKenzie Center,  

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we take our maple syrup pretty 
seriously, and it's one of  

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our biggest education programs. 
But let me tell you a little bit  

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about the MacKenzie Center if 
you're not familiar with it.  

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How many of you have ever been 
there before?  

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Beautiful. 
We're only about 25 miles north  

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of Madison. 
Take highway 51 straight up, and  

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you'll run right into Poynette. 
Most people associate us with  

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the state game farm and the 
pheasants.  

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That's because that property is 
our neighbor.  

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But the MacKenzie Center is an 
environmental education center,  

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and we host lots and lots of 
students every year for outdoor  

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field trips and hands-on field 
trips.  

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We're 250 acres. 
We have live animals.  

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You might often hear us in the 
news with our bobcats or our  

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wolves or our mountain lions. 
We have a nice live wildlife  

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exhibit. 
We have themed museums, hiking  

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trails, different habitats on 
property for people to explore  

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and the students to explore. 
A pond.  

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An arboretum. 
We have a hundred different  

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species of trees that are all 
GPS located that you can go out  

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and learn to identify. 
Our sugar bush, very important,  

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picnic areas, a nice big lodge 
and dormitories.  

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We actually can sleep 82 people 
on any given night.  

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In 2010 we reached just over 
7600 kids, through a variety of  

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programming. 
They come for day field trips  

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with their teachers. 
We may not see them.  

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Sometimes they're self-guided, 
other times they have a lot of  

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staff or volunteer help. 
They come for our maple program  

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just in the month of March. 
We have day camp programs.  

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We have overnight programs, 
those are those 82 beds where  

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they spend the night with us, 
and the kids spend the night  

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with their teachers and 
chaperones and then they kind of  

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wiggle in those traditional 
campfire and night hikes into  

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their field trips. 
And then we do have a variety of  

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summer camp programming as well. 
But today I'm going to focus on  

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maple syrup. 
Out of that 7600 kids, about  

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1500 of them were just for 
maple, in the month of March.  

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So it's a pretty intense program 
for us.  

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This is a picture of our sugar 
bush.  

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Harley MacKenzie, for whom the 
center is named after, loved  

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trees, particularly the sugar 
maple.  

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And so we're blessed with his 
love all these years later with  

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many sugar maple trees to tap. 
The students arrive.  

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They're greeted by volunteers. 
They get into their small  

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groups, and we really do like 
them in small groups because  

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it's hands-on for these kids. 
This is not lecture for them.  

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This is hands-on, outside. 
They're learning all about, a  

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little bit about MacKenzie but 
they're also learning about why  

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trees are important, why the 
forest is important, products  

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like fire wood and lumber and 
that trees give us oxygen, that  

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trees can actually give us food, 
and usually they'll catch on to  

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nuts and berries and things like 
that and apples and oranges.  

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And we try to get them to think 
about the sap that's also  

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flowing in those trees. 
What's neat about this is we  

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talk about the signs of spring. 
And Paul mentioned earlier in  

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the introduction that we're 
waiting for our days to get  

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warmer. 
But for maple syrup to be  

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successful we need warm days and 
very cold nights.  

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So we need to get the kids to 
think about that.  

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Springtime, what does that mean? 
Puddles are melting but they  

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freeze again over night. 
We get them to think about, I'll  

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go back just a second, about 
tree identification.  

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They're at the MacKenzie Center 
and we're going to tap sugar  

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maple trees, well most often 
they'll know the difference  

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between a maple and an oak, but 
in March the leaves aren't on  

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the trees. 
So we need to go a step further  

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and do a little winter 
identification with them.  

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And we'll talk about the 
branches on the trees.  

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Whether they have alternate or 
opposite branching.  

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And a sugar maple tree in 
particular, does anybody know  

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what kind of branching they 
might have?  

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Nobody? 
Okay.  

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Opposite. 
So if you think my body is the  

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trunk and my arms as branches, 
the branches are opposite from  

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each other. 
Versus alternate where you might  

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be like this. 
So we get the kids to do a  

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little dance out in the sugar 
bush.  

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This is a food factory. 
We like to stress that trees are  

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food. 
They make their own food.  

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And we'll get them to experience 
and kind of investigate what  

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that means. 
What the structure of the tree  

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is. 
There's a wood cookie here at  

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the bottom of the tree. 
It's simply a cross section of a  

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tree. 
So we'll talk about the xylem  

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and the phloem, those veins in 
the trees that are carrying the  

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sap from the roots all the way 
up to the buds much like the  

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veins in your body carrying your 
blood.  

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We talk about how the bark 
protects the tree.  

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And then they'll usually get to 
the fact that there's going to  

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be leaves on that tree. 
And leaves are usually green.  

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And green leaves make food 
because of the chlorophyll and  

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the process of photosynthesis. 
And so the students will  

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investigate that a little bit. 
And this is really important to  

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us because we not only want them 
to learn about maple sugar and  

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maple sap but we also need them 
to know how it was created.  

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So they're experiencing it. 
We've got these little pieces  

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that fit inside the food factory 
that represent the sunlight and  

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the chlorophyll needs. 
The water, carbon dioxide, all  

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those things that the tree 
needs.  

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Oops, I'm going a little fast 
here.  

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The kids will experience then 
that through that process of  

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photosynthesis the tree is 
making sugar and water and  

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oxygen. 
And it's that sugar that they're  

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going to learn about how to 
collect.  

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So you collect it. 
You can't just cut the tree  

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down. 
We need to create some sort of  

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method to harvest the sap in 
that tree.  

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In this case the students here 
are making what's called a  

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spile. 
And they're made from small  

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elderberry branches that have a 
very soft pith or center core.  

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And they'll actually clean them 
out and make their own little  

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wooden spile, much like people 
may have done a hundred years  

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ago. 
So hands-on again.  

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Real successful. 
They love doing this.  

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We'll share with them a story or 
a legend, how maple sap may or  

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may not have been discovered. 
And there's a story about a  

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Native American chief who, at 
the end of his day of hunting  

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and gathering, came home and put 
his hatchet, just kind of hit it  

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right in the tree. 
Went about his business.  

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Rested for the evening. 
When he got up in the morning,  

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he took his hatchet and we went 
back out and he was hunting and  

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gathering for his family. 
While it was a nice warm march  

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day where it was above freezing 
during the day, and his wife had  

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left all her vessels in her 
basket at the base of that tree  

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and that tree gave them water 
and filled the baskets.  

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Well she thought it was a really 
nice option to use the water in  

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those baskets instead of 
traveling all the way down to  

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the crick to gather water to 
make her meal.  

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And so she cooked their venison 
and their meat in that water  

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that the tree gave them that 
day.  

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And they realized how sweet and 
how delicious it was.  

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And so they continued to try to 
collect it from the trees, the  

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water from the trees. 
Had they known it was sugar?  

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I don't know. 
Is the story true?  

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I don't know either. 
We call it a legend.  

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But it's one idea of how to do 
it.  

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But again, no hatchets for the 
children.  

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They're making spiles to collect 
it.  

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They're cleaning out. 
Then we've got to find a tree.  

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We've already told them about 
opposite branching.  

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We told them about how maple 
trees have brown bark and brown  

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buds this time of year. 
And they're up in our sugar  

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bush. 
And they're not allowed, if  

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you'll notice to the left 
there's a tree that's already  

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wrapped with a ribbon, sometimes 
we put ribbons around a pine  

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tree just to throw them off, but 
they've got to find their tree  

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because we're going to actually 
let the kids tap the tree.  

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So no hatchets. 
We do use a brace and a bit, and  

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we let the children all take 
turns with the drill.  

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No wooden spiles today but we 
would do a metal spile with a  

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hook. 
And so our teacher here is  

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actually gently tapping it in. 
We talk to the kids about where  

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to tap it on the tree, whether 
it's way down low or way up high  

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or usually about three or four 
feet off the ground is  

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appropriate. 
Makes it easy to collect.  

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Will the tree give us sap way up 
high?  

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Probably. 
But when that bucket is super  

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full it's going to be really 
hard to lift it off without  

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spilling. 
On a really nice warm day, the  

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tree will start dripping before 
we even have the bucket hung.  

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And it's always interesting to 
get a sample.  

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Get it on your finger and taste 
what it's like.  

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And most kids are expecting 
syrup.  

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It's quite interesting. 
You ask them what does it taste  

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like and they'll say water. 
Well, what's interesting about  

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maple sap is on a good tree only 
about 3% to 5% of that sap is  

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going to be sugar, the rest is 
all water.  

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By the time you put it on your 
pancakes it's usually about 66%  

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sugar. 
So there's a big deference  

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between what comes out of the 
tree as sap and what you put on  

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your pancakes for syrup. 
Here's some girls checking out  

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how much is in the buckets. 
On any given season we will  

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probably tap well over a hundred 
trees, and 90% of those trees  

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were tapped in small groups by 
students.  

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There's only a few that the 
volunteers are tapping without a  

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group of students. 
So what we also do with our  

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maple program once they've had 
all this hands-on, they go visit  

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our Che-po-ta-kay. 
And the Che-po-ta-kay is a home,  

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a Native American home. 
And in this case we have a  

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replica. 
And it's covered in a tarp but  

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inside is something special. 
This is where our maple program  

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reaches a different level. 
These students are learning  

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about a little bit of history. 
How Native Americans would  

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travel from their winter home to 
their springtime home and why  

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they would do that. 
Now Native Americans weren't  

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making syrup. 
They had no way to gauge  

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percentages in their sap and in 
their syrup, they were making  

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sugar. 
Inside the house we decorate it  

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with hides and pelts and 
different artifacts.  

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There's an interpreter in here. 
This particular educator is  

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sharing his knowledge with the 
students about how grandmother  

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ran the house. 
It wasn't mom or dad, it would  

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have been grandma. 
And the jobs you may or may not  

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have had as a young child at 
this particular time in history.  

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They'll move on to a different 
station.  

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We call this our hollow log 
station.  

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How did Native Americans get 
their sap from 3% from the tree  

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into sugar which is beyond 66%? 
Well, they got very creative and  

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they'd hollow out logs and they 
would have different vessels  

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such as these. 
They'd take hot rocks that  

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they'd heat up in a campfire, 
and this hollow log in our  

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demonstration purposes is filled 
with water.  

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History would tell us it would 
be filled with sap.  

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You drop those hot rocks into 
that sap and you're evaporating.  

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What is all that steam? 
Well it's water.  

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So it's concentrating the sap 
through evaporation.  

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Another station we take the 
students to is early pioneers.  

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How did the pioneers, they 
learned a lot from the Native  

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00:13:53,099 --> 00:13:56,436
Americans. 
They could barter and trade for  

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00:13:56,436 --> 00:14:00,473
syrup and for sap and for sugar. 
But they brought tools with  

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00:14:00,473 --> 00:14:03,343
them, tools the Native Americans 
didn't have.  

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They had iron. 
So we have our iron kettles.  

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We talk about tapping the trees 
and bringing different tools  

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00:14:10,817 --> 00:14:13,853
with you. 
They may have modified the spile  

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a little bit. 
In this case the spile is quite  

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00:14:17,223 --> 00:14:20,393
long, it's probably a good 12 to 
18 inches compared to that  

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00:14:20,393 --> 00:14:23,530
little metal one we tapped in 
the tree.  

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While they didn't necessarily 
have a method to hang a bucket  

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00:14:26,566 --> 00:14:29,736
from the spile, they'd set it at 
the base of the tree so you  

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00:14:29,736 --> 00:14:32,906
needed a longer spile so you 
that you didn't waste any of  

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00:14:32,906 --> 00:14:36,209
those drops, that it landed 
right in the bucket that you  

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00:14:36,209 --> 00:14:41,281
placed there. 
So we're talking about  

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concentrating that sap, again 
through evaporation.  

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00:14:44,317 --> 00:14:47,787
A hot fire is cooking that sap. 
You constantly needed to use  

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00:14:47,787 --> 00:14:51,191
that paddle to stir it up so 
that it wouldn't scorch on the  

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00:14:51,191 --> 00:14:55,462
bottom of those iron kettles. 
It would get a little darker,  

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00:14:55,462 --> 00:14:58,765
you'd move it to the next 
kettle, next kettle until you  

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00:14:58,765 --> 00:15:02,435
got a little bit less and a 
little bit less.  

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00:15:02,435 --> 00:15:06,106
Kids want to do this at home. 
So sometimes we'll show them an  

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00:15:06,106 --> 00:15:10,210
outdoor cooker. 
I don't know if any of you know  

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00:15:10,210 --> 00:15:14,414
people that produce maple syrup 
at home but traditionally you  

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00:15:14,414 --> 00:15:17,384
don't do the whole process from 
beginning to end in your  

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00:15:17,384 --> 00:15:20,153
kitchen. 
You think about boiling water  

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00:15:20,153 --> 00:15:23,256
for noodles and things like that 
and all the condensation and the  

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00:15:23,256 --> 00:15:26,359
steam that's in your kitchen. 
Now can you imagine for doing  

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00:15:26,359 --> 00:15:30,897
that for 10-12 hours straight. 
It produces a lot of humidity in  

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00:15:30,897 --> 00:15:33,733
your home, and if you have 
wallpaper and things like that  

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00:15:33,733 --> 00:15:37,103
it's not usually a good idea. 
You can start the process  

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00:15:37,103 --> 00:15:41,041
outside. 
This is a simple little brick  

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00:15:41,041 --> 00:15:46,246
outdoor cooker with a flat pan 
on the fireplace.  

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00:15:46,246 --> 00:15:49,182
We're very fortunate at 
MacKenzie because we have  

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00:15:49,182 --> 00:15:51,951
buildings dedicated just for our 
maple syrup program.  

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These are students that are near 
our cook shack.  

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00:15:55,422 --> 00:15:58,525
And here they're looking at the 
a demonstration of all the many  

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different kinds of spiles. 
Some of it is technology  

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00:16:02,028 --> 00:16:05,498
improving from wooden to metal 
to plastic.  

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00:16:05,498 --> 00:16:09,903
Sometimes it's simply just your 
preference.  

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All the Wisconsin maple 
products.  

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00:16:12,806 --> 00:16:17,177
We have lots of local maple 
products here in Wisconsin.  

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00:16:17,177 --> 00:16:20,780
A weather station just 
reaffirming to the students that  

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you can't do this any other time 
of year.  

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00:16:24,484 --> 00:16:27,320
You need to remind them you need 
springtime.  

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00:16:27,320 --> 00:16:31,257
You need warm spring days but 
you also need those cold spring  

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nights. 
And a thermograph that measures  

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00:16:34,227 --> 00:16:38,264
the temperatures helps us 
monitor some of those things.  

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00:16:38,264 --> 00:16:42,802
In our cook shack we have a 
special back room that holds our  

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sap tank. 
There's a hundred gallon tank in  

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00:16:45,805 --> 00:16:48,475
there. 
So all the sap that's collected  

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00:16:48,475 --> 00:16:51,244
from the trees that the students 
just tapped.  

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00:16:51,244 --> 00:16:53,880
Some of it gets refrigerated, 
some of it goes directly into  

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00:16:53,880 --> 00:16:59,285
that silver sap tank. 
Here they're looking at a  

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00:16:59,285 --> 00:17:03,456
demonstration of milk jugs. 
To put it into perspective on  

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00:17:03,456 --> 00:17:08,094
how much time it takes in 
perspective, if our maple tree  

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00:17:08,094 --> 00:17:14,167
has 5% sugar, it would take us 
17 gallons of sap to make one  

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00:17:14,167 --> 00:17:17,303
gallon of syrup. 
So we would have to collect that  

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00:17:17,303 --> 00:17:20,340
many milk jugs full of sap just 
to get on milk jug of pancake  

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00:17:20,340 --> 00:17:25,445
syrup. 
At 4% it's 21 and at 3% it's 28.  

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00:17:25,445 --> 00:17:30,483
And trees on average are closer 
to three than they are to five  

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00:17:30,483 --> 00:17:33,853
so we are collecting a lot of 
sap to make just a little bit of  

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00:17:33,853 --> 00:17:40,460
syrup, and that's often why pure 
maple syrup is more expensive.  

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00:17:40,460 --> 00:17:45,231
It's very time consuming to 
produce.  

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00:17:45,231 --> 00:17:48,435
So this displays on the outside 
of our cook shack for our  

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00:17:48,435 --> 00:17:51,404
students. 
Then they get to enter the  

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00:17:51,404 --> 00:17:54,140
shack. 
Here we have a volunteer  

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00:17:54,140 --> 00:17:56,943
educator explaining what's going 
on in this building in this part  

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00:17:56,943 --> 00:18:00,046
of the process. 
Our technology is from the Civil  

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00:18:00,046 --> 00:18:03,383
War era. 
Here we have an arch stove with  

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00:18:03,383 --> 00:18:07,053
a flat pan. 
And the pan is actually the top  

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00:18:07,053 --> 00:18:09,956
of the stove. 
If you were to remove that pan,  

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00:18:09,956 --> 00:18:13,860
you'd see the flames. 
Very hot fire.  

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00:18:13,860 --> 00:18:18,998
In this case that sap tank I 
showed you in a previous slide  

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00:18:18,998 --> 00:18:23,269
has a little tube that goes 
through the wall because it is  

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00:18:23,269 --> 00:18:27,273
constantly draining into this 
flat pan so that there's always  

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00:18:27,273 --> 00:18:30,577
about an inch to an inch and a 
half in that pan.  

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00:18:30,577 --> 00:18:34,514
And if you were to look at, it's 
at a little roaring boil.  

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00:18:34,514 --> 00:18:38,752
All these little bubbles. 
And they stir it up, they just  

304
00:18:38,752 --> 00:18:42,856
don't want it to scorch. 
It takes them probably 10 to 12  

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00:18:42,856 --> 00:18:47,260
hours to cook down that hundred 
gallon tank full of sap.  

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00:18:47,260 --> 00:18:50,663
So we have volunteers that 
arrive quite early in the  

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00:18:50,663 --> 00:18:54,334
morning. 
On a cold day this is a favorite  

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00:18:54,334 --> 00:19:02,542
spot for the kids. 
We have some very interesting  

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00:19:02,542 --> 00:19:06,680
engineers in our volunteer crew. 
That contraption that's on the  

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00:19:06,680 --> 00:19:10,250
top of the flat pan evaporator 
you'll see that this is the tube  

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00:19:10,250 --> 00:19:13,820
that comes out, the sap tank is 
on the opposite side of the  

312
00:19:13,820 --> 00:19:17,057
wall. 
What they're trying to do is  

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00:19:17,057 --> 00:19:20,427
preheat the sap a little bit 
through those coils before it  

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00:19:20,427 --> 00:19:24,164
enters right in. 
And I think it took off an hour  

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00:19:24,164 --> 00:19:28,768
or two of production time at the 
end of the day.  

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00:19:28,768 --> 00:19:32,339
Some students in the sugar 
house.  

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00:19:32,339 --> 00:19:35,875
Inside our finishing house we 
like to share with them all the  

318
00:19:35,875 --> 00:19:40,246
different maple products. 
We'll quiz them.  

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00:19:40,246 --> 00:19:43,416
We'll pick up this bottle of 
Aunt Jemima, and we'll ask one  

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00:19:43,416 --> 00:19:46,052
of the students to read the back 
and read the ingredients.  

321
00:19:46,052 --> 00:19:49,356
What do you think is in this 
particular pancake syrup?  

322
00:19:49,356 --> 00:19:52,325
>> Corn syrup. 
>> Corn syrup.  

323
00:19:52,325 --> 00:19:55,729
Nowhere in the ingredients list 
will it say maple.  

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00:19:55,729 --> 00:19:59,366
And for a product to have pure 
maple syrup in it, it has to say  

325
00:19:59,366 --> 00:20:05,905
it on the front of the label. 
We use a refractometer and this  

326
00:20:05,905 --> 00:20:09,342
is a diagram of it. 
It's a small tool that you put a  

327
00:20:09,342 --> 00:20:13,313
drop of sap on, and you measure 
how the light reflects through  

328
00:20:13,313 --> 00:20:17,083
that sap and it will tell you 
how much sugar is in it.  

329
00:20:17,083 --> 00:20:21,154
So that flat pan, they're 
cooking and they're cooking and  

330
00:20:21,154 --> 00:20:24,190
they're cooking all day, they 
take it off that hot fire at  

331
00:20:24,190 --> 00:20:29,195
about 64%. 
Sometimes it moves really quick  

332
00:20:29,195 --> 00:20:32,132
on them. 
Then they'll take it inside our  

333
00:20:32,132 --> 00:20:34,768
finishing house where on a 
stove, on a gas stove, they'll  

334
00:20:34,768 --> 00:20:38,972
get it just to the very end. 
And their goal is 66% bricks or  

335
00:20:38,972 --> 00:20:44,077
66% sugar. 
If you go past it, you're going  

336
00:20:44,077 --> 00:20:51,384
to get like a maple candy or 
maple actually crumb sugar.  

337
00:20:51,384 --> 00:20:54,320
It almost looks like brown 
sugar.  

338
00:20:54,320 --> 00:20:57,290
So the volunteers are constantly 
measuring where it is in the  

339
00:20:57,290 --> 00:21:01,194
process. 
It gets filtered several  

340
00:21:01,194 --> 00:21:05,398
different times, and then it 
gets jarred and bundled up.  

341
00:21:05,398 --> 00:21:10,003
Cooled and labeled. 
And the students then do enjoy a  

342
00:21:10,003 --> 00:21:13,173
campfire outside where they kind 
of have a review.  

343
00:21:13,173 --> 00:21:17,844
They get to sample some pure 
maple syrup, see what they've  

344
00:21:17,844 --> 00:21:22,015
learned on their field trip. 
We've got some neat props.  

345
00:21:22,015 --> 00:21:25,485
This particular wood cookie that 
the volunteer has here has been  

346
00:21:25,485 --> 00:21:28,722
a tree that's been tapped 
before.  

347
00:21:28,722 --> 00:21:32,559
So they're showing some scars on 
that particular tree and  

348
00:21:32,559 --> 00:21:36,529
stressing to them that the tree 
had healed much like a scab on  

349
00:21:36,529 --> 00:21:41,568
your body, the tree healed and 
continued to grow.  

350
00:21:41,568 --> 00:21:45,739
We challenge them a little bit, 
talking again about pioneer life  

351
00:21:45,739 --> 00:21:49,943
and collecting and the tools you 
may have had to do that and how  

352
00:21:49,943 --> 00:21:54,647
much work and how time consuming 
and labor intensive this process  

353
00:21:54,647 --> 00:21:57,717
can be. 
But it got you outside and  

354
00:21:57,717 --> 00:22:01,054
everybody loved it. 
And then, of course, the sample.  

355
00:22:01,054 --> 00:22:04,591
And I have samples to share with 
you today as well.  

356
00:22:04,591 --> 00:22:08,995
Now what make this is program 
successful at MacKenzie is last  

357
00:22:08,995 --> 00:22:13,767
year we had over 68 volunteers 
that served over 3,000 hours in  

358
00:22:13,767 --> 00:22:18,805
the month of March. 
So it reached 1500 students,  

359
00:22:18,805 --> 00:22:22,509
they collected just over 1200 
gallons of sap and produced  

360
00:22:22,509 --> 00:22:27,414
just over 40 gallons of syrup. 
It's a lot of time and a lot of  

361
00:22:27,414 --> 00:22:31,017
effort on them, but our 
volunteers often tell us that  

362
00:22:31,017 --> 00:22:33,553
it's addicting. 
That once they get settled, once  

363
00:22:33,553 --> 00:22:36,589
they find their niche in the 
program, they wait for it every  

364
00:22:36,589 --> 00:22:40,794
year. 
So we're pretty excited about  

365
00:22:40,794 --> 00:22:44,597
it. 
We're already in the midst of  

366
00:22:44,597 --> 00:22:47,634
planning for this spring. 
Our teachers are gearing up.  

367
00:22:47,634 --> 00:22:50,070
They plan all their field trips 
next week.  

368
00:22:50,070 --> 00:22:52,272
So hopefully we'll have our 
spring field trip calendar  

369
00:22:52,272 --> 00:22:55,775
filled. 
And we do quite well.  

370
00:22:55,775 --> 00:22:58,044
We have a lot of fun with it. 
It does mean that spring is  

371
00:22:58,044 --> 00:23:01,481
coming. 
All right.  

372
00:23:01,481 --> 00:23:04,651
Samples, would you like to enjoy 
some samples or take some  

373
00:23:04,651 --> 00:23:09,556
questions? 
[APPLAUSE]