The trees had not been tapped for over 50 years. I had never
done it. No one had done it where I grew up. There was no such thing as tapping
trees in Northern Manitoba and anywhere else in Manitoba as far as I knew.
I had visited a Sugar bush to buy Maple syrup a few times
since I moved to southwestern Ontario but never toured the bush itself. I don’t
know why the sugar sap ran here and not elsewhere. I had never given it a
thought. After I had seen my first black squirrel, I learned not to be surprised
on the hemispheric shifts in flora and fauna from where I was from and my new
home in the southernmost part of Canada.
25 years pass. The idea floats here and there. Talked about,
mentioned in passing and forgotten. I can’t say for sure how it found a
foothold. From where, what or whom came the inspiration. Maybe it was a dream
or something other whispering in my ear at night.
Someone helped to nudge the notion along through the ether
and into this world. All I know is that one day I knew that I was going to do it
and I set about converting idea into action - dream into reality.
I ask my in-laws, the elders in the family, for direction.
My father in law shows me the trees he had planted with his grandmother when he
was a little boy.
Five beautiful hard sugar maples that by his estimation must
be around 70 years old, his mother had tapped those trees but he had never done
it on his own. My mother in law, as well, remembers tapping trees as a child
but had never done it when she grew up.
My wife told me she can remember being a little girl looking
up at her grandmother as she went about tapping the trees. She remembers her
grandmother’s kitchen filled with steam as the final water was boiled from the
sugar and she remembers her grandmother holding out a spoon with a touch of
liquid magic for her tongue.
That was the last memory.
***
I begin my research online, watching videos on youtube and
tracking which one I felt was most helpful. When my in-laws are visiting one
day I show them and they smile at the memories. “It looks simple enough,” I
say. And they smile at that.
I visit a local sugar bush and ask if they have spiles, the
metal funnel shaped spigots that you tap into the tree to drain the sap into
the buckets. “We have plenty sitting in a bucket in a storage shed. We don’t do
it like that anymore, these days we all use plastic tubing,” he says.
The modern sugar bush is no longer a group of trees with
individual spiles and buckets. The trees
are tapped with plastic spigots that are connected to a series of tubes that
run the sap from a number of trees and drain into a barrel. Some have it so
automated that it drains into the barrel, into a filter, then right into a
boiler that drips out syrup.
I am only going to tap a couple of trees, I tell him. I buy
a dozen spigots, hooks, buckets and covers for 20 bucks. I am pretty sure that we both feel that we kind of ripped
off the other guy.
When I get back, I share that I have the tools to get
started. The next big part is to be sure that I have the right bit for the hand
drill to make the holes for the spile.
My father in law takes that task, he asks me to leave a
spile with him and he will figure it out. He’s a carpenter, I’m a writer and I
am happy to have him figure that out.
He calls me up about an hour later. He
shows me a block of wood with a spigot sitting snugly inside. He has it marked
with a piece of tape. “You have to go this deep, but no further,” he tells me.
He is serious about this.
My father in law who is jovial at the best and worst of
times is serious about business when it comes to his trade as a carpenter and
as one who has lived much of his life dependent of Mother Earth to provide, he is serious about harvesting.
I take my granddaughter with me and we go to tap the first
tree. I offer tobacco to the tree and to the Creator. I begin to crank the
drill and the bit moves easily through the bark and the first layer of flesh
but I struggle when I enter the meat of the tree. They don’t call it hard Maple
for nothing.
I pause, reset my feet and hands and then begin to crank
again. I wobble a bit but I keep going until I hit my mark.The clear liquid begins to leak out the hole. Excellent.
I take the spigot and I tap, tap, tap and then I see a drop
of liquid come out the end. That’s it. I put the hook on the spigot and hang up
my pail. We hear the tinny plink as the first lonely drop hits the bottom of
the pail.
I look at my granddaughter and say, “looks like we are in
business, my girl.” She beams her big warm smile.
We do it three more times, two spigots on two trees in total.
I am getting weaker as I go along and truth be told, I start to hurry. The last
couple holes require more stopping, more resetting of the feet and hands. When
I tap these spigots in, they don’t fit snugly.
I know right away that this is going to be a problem. My
only comfort is that I don’t know what I’m doing right so there’s a chance,
that I don’t know what I am doing wrong.
As I prepare the report for my wife, I realize that I have
just made a partnership with the trees and I have no idea what that means and
how long it will last. For some reason I thought that I could give it a go, see
what happened and if it didn’t work out; I could just stop.
I tell my partner, “I’ve just started a ceremony in which I
don’t know what will happen and I don’t know how or when it will end. As soon
as I put my tobacco down and put holes in those trees, I made a commitment to
honor that ceremony until the sap is finished running. I didn’t realize that
until it was done.”
I don’t sleep well. I’m bothered by the fact that the last two
holes I drilled were obviously too big, the early spring weather echoes my
unease. The winds blow hard and steady
all night long.
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