The Colby Echo

Issue date: 4/20/07 Section: Features

Media Credit: Beth Cole

Media Credit: Beth Cole

The sky is spitting rain, a foreboding of the brewing April snow storm, and the air is thick with the sharp smell of billowing wood smoke. Behind Colby's Hill House, five members of the Colby Outing Club and the Woodsmen Team stand around a large metal basin and poke at the crackling logs underneath. Emma Carlson '08 pours three-gallon buckets of clear liquid into the steaming, shallow tub. She ladles the liquid from a black plastic trashcan that I assume is filled with rainwater. But Carlson quickly informs me that this translucent, almost tasteless liquid is tree sap, and today she will be boiling ninety gallons of it to produce authentic Maine maple syrup.

For three weeks now, Carlson has trudged out to the sugarbush behind the Hill House each day to empty the sap from forty tapped maple trees. Standing by the warm fire where the boiling occurs, one can easily determine linear rows of sugar maples, called a "sugarbush," receding into the woods. This grove is marked by yellow ribbons tied around the bark and colorful buckets that dangle from the trunks. Carlson weaves her way through the rows, drawing attention to the small metal spouts that peak out from the bark, and notes a bucket with an inch of liquid sap in the bottom.

"I emptied all the buckets this morning, but some are already accumulating again. This, however, is nothing like the week of spring break when I would come out here, and the buckets would be spilling over," she says. By her third week of the project, Carlson has collected over 300 gallons of sap and boiled the sugary water either on-site at the sugarbush or in her kitchen. Yet, the fruits of Carlson's labor seem meager: a mere five gallons of syrup. "The sap-syrup ratio is about 40-1, so we have to collect a lot to produce anything," she says, grinning. "It's a lot of work, but it's worth it."

Carlson first realized the project at an ES colloquium where she met Colby alum Brandon Kulik '76. Kulik, who now works as an environmental consultant in Winslow, contributed to the Colby tradition just after sugaring on campus came into fruition in the early 70s. At that time, a group of thirty students worked the sugarbush, delegating responsibilities and dividing the syrup evenly among contributors. At the end of the season, a portion of the syrup would be allocated for a campus-wide breakfast. Kulik believes that students lost interest in tapping the maples during the mid-80s.

Intrigued by the forgotten project, Carlson visited the sugarbush and discovered the original metal evaporator by a nearby shack. She then negotiated a revival of the sugaring tradition with Colby deans, the Physical Plant Department, Security, and the Waterville Fire Department. Upon approval, Carlson joined forces with the Outing Club, who helped sponsor the project. "We received a lot of support from various groups and individuals on campus who helped us with resources and with taking the necessary precautions in checking the age and the health of the tree before tapping." A maple needs to be at least 30 years old before it can offer sugar-rich sap without detriment to the tree's nutrition, and Carlson points out faded yellow spots on some of the trees where Kulik painted marks on the trees old enough to be tapped.

As for the livelihood of the second-round of Colby sugaring, Carlson is optimistic. "Tapping the sugarbush has a home now with the COC, and already, freshman through seniors are working on the project. March is a quiet time, and sugaring gets people outside. We encourage people to come down here to see what's going on and so many people have asked, 'So what do you have to add to make this sweet?' I just laugh and say, 'Nothing. It's all natural.'"

Carlson will most likely boil for the last time this weekend. She intends to complete the tradition by throwing a campus-wide pancake breakfast, furnished with genuine Colby maple syrup.

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