Maple Syrup Festival set to return to St. John’s Arboretum

As the Minnesota winter begins its characteristically slow and unpredictable retreat, the annual Maple Syrup Festival is returning to the St. John’s Arboretum, continuing a tradition that has connected the community for more than 80 years.

The tradition of making maple syrup at St. John’s dates back to World War II. The practice began when sugar rationing led members of the monastic community to begin producing maple syrup as an alternative sweetener. However, syruping started in the CSB+SJU area long before the monastics began their own operations in 1942.

“Native Americans were the first to do maple syruping,” said Conal Brady SJU‘22, one of the Abbey Forest professionals at the Arboretum. “There are different stories about how they discovered it, like seeing animals drinking sap from broken branches or getting a tool stuck in a tree and having sap flowing from the wound.”

“For the CSB+SJU area, the two main groups are the Dakhóta and Anishinaabe tribes,” Brady said. “There is evidence that they used the land that the CSB+SJU campuses are on, so it is possible that maple syruping has been happening on this land for a while.”

Today, the method of syruping that St. John’s uses has remained mostly unchanged, inspired by the process that Native American tribes used to make their maple syrup and sugar in a process that is deliberate and calculated.

“Maple sap flow depends on a freeze-thaw cycle: temperatures above freezing during the day and below freezing at night,” said Nicholas Mertens, department coordinator of OutdoorU. “This cycle allows sap to move up and down within the tree.”

Year by year, the program grows in scale, resulting in participation from student volunteers who have become deeply involved with the syrup-making process throughout the season.

“Volunteers have assisted with tapping trees, collecting sap and participating in educational activities,” Mertens said. “Volunteers can even be ‘reimbursed’ with maple syrup—the more hours you contribute and the more syrup produced, the larger your share can be.”

Student participation also extends into the classroom. In Biology 375: Natural History of Maple Syrup, students study the science behind sap flow and syrup production. The course includes research projects related to maple syrup, and students present their work during the festival. Additionally, each spring, the Arboretum hosts various groups for tours, including elementary schools and homeschool groups.

All visitors attending the festival will have the opportunity to learn about the maple syrup process firsthand. For example, demonstrations will explain how sap is collected from trees and boiled down into syrup using “Big Bernie,” the program’s wood-fired evaporator. Attendees can also explore the Sugar Shack and participate in short educational sessions about maple syrup production and its history at St. John’s.

Whether visitors come to learn about the science behind maple syrup, explore the Arboretum or simply celebrate the (eventual) arrival of spring, the Maple Syrup Festival is continuing to highlight one of the many traditions that has been a part of the CSB+SJU community for generations.

The festival will take place on Saturday, March 28 from 12-4 p.m. and it’s open to students, monastics, faculty, staff and visitors of all ages. There will be a shuttle available in Science Lot #1 (lot P5) at SJU for transportation to the festival grounds. Additionally, for CSB+SJU students and monastery members, admission is free. Check out www.csbsju.edu/outdooru for more information.

For those who can’t wait until the festival, or are looking for other ways to get involved, the Abbey Conservation Corps (ACC) meets every Wednesday from 1-3 p.m. on floor two of the Peter Engel Science Center, bringing opportunities for volunteers to participate in land stewardship projects. Reach out to outdooru@csbsju.edu to learn more.