Watercolors of the ingredients for Vermont maple syrup harvest: three spoonfuls labeled 'Dark Amber,' 'Medium,' and 'Light Amber,' a maple leaf, a tree trunk, a jar of maple syrup, and a small container. Text reads 'Vermont Harvest of the Month Maple Syrup' and the website www.vermontharvestofthemonth.org.

Maple Syrup

Maple syrup comes from sugar maple trees, known as senômozi to the Abenaki. Sugar maple is native across New England, parts of the upper Midwest, and Quebec-- a unique bioregion known as Maple Nation. Many thousands of years ago, the Indigenous people of this region devised a way of tapping into that flow of sap, collecting it in buckets, then boiling it down to get senômozibagw [se-NOH-moh-ZEE- bahk], sweet maple syrup and maple sugar. Over the millennia, the tools and methods for sugaring have changed, however the basic practice has remained the same; collecting sap and concentrating its sugar content to something sweet and syrupy. The process requires patience, as it takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup, but the wait is well worth it!

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Metal bucket filled with water hanging from a tree trunk in a wooded area.

Harvest Videos

Harvest Photos

Two children playing outdoors in a wooded area, one wearing a red hat and the other wearing a blue hat, near a large tree.
Four children holding trays of freshly baked cookies in a kitchen.
A group of children and an adult observing a fire being heated in a large outdoor cooking setup inside a wooden shed. The setup includes metal equipment with smoke and visible flames, surrounded by firewood.
Bottle of Vermont pure maple syrup, bottle of pancake and waffle syrup, and 11 small cups filled with syrup on a red tray.