The Sugarbush, a forest with a majority of Sugar Maples trees, becomes an amazing palette of golds and reds in the fall.  Here in the Natural Area, we have an old growth Sugar Maple forest which becomes more active in the fall and winter than any other time of year...

 

 Photos by Tom Laundroche                                      





    Starting in February, we begin tapping our Sugar Maple trees in order to make pure maple syrup.  Every afternoon we collect the sap...

 

Photo by Millard Berry
                                    


Haul it back to the Environmental Interpretive Center...



                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Photo by Millard Berry




And boil it in our Evaporator until it becomes syrup.  Yum!!!

                          

You can experience this process in action every February and March at our public Maple Syruping programs.  Learn the process from the beginning to end.  The Environmental Interpretive Center's Naturalists will teach you how to identify Sugar Maple trees, how to tap them so as not to harm the tree, stewardship of the sugarbush, how to collect sap, and finally the process of making sap into syrup.  Look for our winter newsletter for dates and times!

Scavenger Hunt Question:
Can you find find taps on any trees in the sugarbush?