Maple sugaring on campus is a tradition that dates back to 1922 or 1923 when Albert Baily, a Botany teacher, incorporated it into his curriculum. The process of tapping the maple trees, collecting the sap, and boiling it down into syrup has continued off and on and in various forms over the last one hundred years. Back in the day, Upper School student leaders oversaw the maple sugaring and were known as “Sap Heads.” Today, the sugaring process is stewarded by Upper School Outdoor Leadership students and students in the Lower School’s Farm and Forest classes under the direction of Chris Costa, Director of Outdoor Leadership, Tim Mountz, Sustainable Agriculture Teacher, and Bruce Harrison ’81 who revived the tradition in the late 90s and has been participating in the process with current students each year since.
In late February, eight maple trees on campus were tapped by students, including the Grandmother Maple (located across from the Admission Office), which was tapped by first graders. The flow and collection buckets were monitored over a period of about two weeks. On March 8, the boil began in the pit on Sugar Hill, located in the woods behind the Meeting House. The sugaring teams kept watch over the fire, adding sap to the evaporator pan over the span of almost 11 (wet and cold!) hours, then the final cook down was done in the steam kettle in the kitchen for about two and a half hours. The boil began with 98 gallons of sap and it produced 3.75 gallons of syrup. Student groups stopped by the boil to stoke the fire, taste the sap, and observe the production. You can enjoy the gallery of photos here!
