Sap, Syrup & Sugar
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Sap, Syrup & Sugar at Genesee Country Village & Museum Nature Center © Genesee Country Village & Museum Mumford, New York March 2011 (Revised March 2020) 2 | P a g e ABOUT GENESEE COUNTRY VILLAGE AND MUSEUM Founded in 1966 by John (“Jack”) L. Wehle, the Genesee Country Village & Museum opened to the public ten years later as an educational institution chartered by the State of New York. Mr. Wehle sought to create a “museum village” of selected examples of 19th-century Genesee Country architecture for two purposes: to save these remarkable structures from destruction and to create a context for learning about that period of our past that historians designate “The Century that Made America.” Today, sixty-eight historically important buildings have been furnished, staffed and arranged in a recreated Genesee Country village that enables all of us to forge connections with the past that defines who we are now and who we can become tomorrow. Surrounding the village are more than a thousand acres of fields, grasslands, ponds and wetlands. The Genesee Country Nature Center, occupying 175 of these acres and traversed by five miles of themed trails, provides opportunities to contemplate the relationship between Western New York’s land – including its plants, animals, soils and waterways – and the people who have lived on it. Each has influenced the other and visitors can discover for themselves the evidence that abounds in this now tranquil setting. Rounding out the village’s portrayal of daily life in 19th-century America and the nature center’s presentation of the story of people on the Western New York landscape, the John L. Wehle Art Gallery offers stunning examples of internationally recognized artists’ work. Each painting and sculpture represents one individual’s interpretation of natural history, perception of animals or perspective on the changing culture in North America, all leading to or deriving from the 19th century. As an educational institution, the Genesee Country Village & Museum is committed to using these settings, buildings, objects and works of art to create an exciting place to be and to learn. We believe that children who interact with objects and exhibits remember, and in so doing they acquire perceptual and inductive skills that serve them well for the rest of their lives. To facilitate this kind of discovery for those who visit the museum is the aim of all our work. ABOUT THIS GUIDE FOR EDUCATORS This guide is arranged to assist you in customizing your use of our museum’s online learning resources. Included are suggestions for preparing a visit to the museum, followed by an outline of this Focused Field Study’s specific links to New York State Learning Standards. Next are statements of essential understandings your students will acquire and skills your students will use during the activities. The historic context provides relevant background information. The timeline, vocabulary list and extension activities are for use in your classroom. There are descriptions of the structured activities and related visits that will be scheduled for your students’ field trip to Genesee Country Village & Museum. Additional resources, including examples of primary resources, are found at the end of this guide. We have provided a variety of materials to enable you to select activities that best suit your students and your curriculum plans. Thank you! Sap, Syrup & Sugar at Genesee Country Village & Museum Nature Center – www.gcv.org 3 | P a g e LINKS TO NEW YORK STATE LEARNING STANDARDS Sap, Syrup & Sugar has been specifically designed to support the New York State Learning Standards and Common Core Standards. NY State Standards MST 1, 4, 6; SS 1 ELA Common Core Standards SL 1, 2, 3, 6 ESSENTIAL UNDERSTANDINGS Maple syrup, maple sugar, maple candy and maple cream are natural products made by collecting sap from the sugar maple tree and removing water. Maple production is unique to the Northeastern United States and southeastern Canada. Even though maple trees are found throughout the eastern United States and eastern Canada, sap collection is dependent on freezing nights and warm days that occur only in late winter and early spring in Canada and the Northeastern United States. The sap runs in late winter and early spring when farmers have less work to do. In the 19th century, groups of families left their farms and camped together in the sugarbush, working 24 hours per day for several weeks to make as much sugar as possible. The end of sugaring was celebrated with a sugaring-off party. In modern production, many farmers use this slow time in the agricultural calendar to make maple products. Modern equipment, such as plastic tubing and evaporators, has made maple production faster and easier. However, the basic process of removing water from the sap has remained the same since European settlers first wrote about it in the 1600s. Early Pioneers made maple sugar instead of syrup because sugar can be stored for long periods of time at room temperature and syrup requires refrigeration, which they did not have. Making and using maple sugar was also a way to protest against the use of white sugar which was expensive and produced through slavery in the south. Use this online resource with your students to practice the following skills: Reading Writing Observing Comparing/Contrasting Interviewing (listening/speaking) Interpreting and paraphrasing primary resources Collaborating with classmates Recognizing patterns and relationships Sap, Syrup & Sugar at Genesee Country Village & Museum Nature Center – www.gcv.org 4 | P a g e HISTORICAL/SCIENTIFIC CONTEXT In the early days of American colonization through the late nineteenth century, sugaring, the practice of harvesting sap from sugar maple trees and boiling it down into syrup or sugar, was a vitally important and considerably widespread practice in the Northeastern and Midwestern United States and eastern Canada. The techniques the early pioneers used were learned from the American Indians, and the tradition survived centuries; today, maple syrup producers use the same techniques as their predecessors, only altered by minor technological developments. Today, maple sugar has been eclipsed by its more popular alternative, white sugar, and is thus not an agricultural or culinary staple, but it had a significant presence in the lives of early American farmers. Sugaring was, and continues to be, unique to the northeast because the climate supports sap collection, which requires at least two weeks of frosty nights followed by warm days. It was therefore most popular and viable in Pennsylvania, New England, New York, and eastern Canada, where the months of February, March, and April were ideal for sugaring, though it was also widely practiced in the Midwestern states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, and as far south as Virginia. The timing of the harvest was also convenient for Northeastern farmers; it took place after the fall harvest but before planting at the spring, a time when there were few other obligations for farmers and their families. The labor required for sugaring, though arduous, was nonetheless significantly less taxing than other agricultural tasks. Because of these traits, sugaring was appealing and encouraged, and became a fixture in the lives of Northeastern farmers, helping to shape the economy and especially the culture of the region. Native American Origins Sugaring techniques were first learned from the American Indians, who had been collecting and boiling sugar for centuries before the arrival of the Europeans. In the early days of North American colonization, settlers in the New World encountered unfamiliar terrain, accompanied by equally unfamiliar plants, animals, and native groups and traditions. Though interactions with American Indians were plagued by tension and violence, colonists found in many cases that they could learn a great deal from the peoples who had long inhabited the land. Perhaps one of the more influential skills learned was that of sugaring: collecting and boiling sap from sugar maple trees to form useful products, most notably maple syrup and maple sugar. It is impossible to say how Native Americans came to discover that sap from certain trees could be used in the production of sugar and syrup, but there are many Native American stories that attempt to explain the phenomenon. One old Iroquois legend tells of the accidental discovery of the sugar-making process. According to the tale, a hunter returned to his dwelling and noticed a sweet smell hanging in the air around the kettle where his mate was boiling meat. He learned that there had been sap from a broken maple limb in the bottom of the kettle, and delighted in the delicious sweetness that remained. He and his fellow tribe members therefore began boiling sap on purpose. It is more likely, however, that the sweetness of maple sap was discovered by eating “sapsicles,” icicles made of frozen sap that hangs from broken limbs of sugar maple trees and makes a tasty treat. Early Encounters with Sugaring Regardless of the origins of the practice, early settlers remarked upon and soon began to make use of it for their own purposes. White sugar, made from sugar cane, was a luxury in North America. It was expensive, and had to be imported from the West Indies and other parts of the world. Settlers therefore recognized the value of having an alternative that could be manufactured domestically. The first European records of sugaring appeared in the mid-sixteenth century. Jacques Cartier, during his Sap, Syrup & Sugar at Genesee Country Village & Museum Nature Center – www.gcv.org 5 | P a g e explorations in what is now Quebec, recorded his observations of sugar maple trees in 1540, and Andre Thevet, a French scribe, wrote of the Indians using refined sap as sugar and syrup in 1557. In 1606, Marc Lescarbot created an account of the collection and boiling of maple sap by the Micmac Indians of eastern Canada, writing in his Histoire de la Nouvelle France that when the Indians were thirsty they used juice from trees and boiled it into “a sweet and very agreeable liquid.” Settlers adopted and adjusted the processes they observed.