Sugarbush 2027

Get outside this Spring!

Meet your neighbors and learn new skills by helping out at the maple boil! Participation is free, and regular volunteers earn a share of the finished syrup.

Tapping starts Feb. 1

(Weather and trees permitting. Every year we ask the trees when they’re planning to start the sap run, and every year they refuse to answer our emails ¯\_(ツ)_/)

Location: Trailway Campground

4540 Dowling St, Montague, MI 49437-1201
Just across the bike path from Montague Foods.
Look for the pavilion across Buttermilk Creek from the campground entrance.
We will (hopefully) have signs pointing the way. (Want to help us make signs? Get in touch!)

Boil Schedule:

Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays
10am-4pm
Boils can be cancelled if the sap’s not running or the weather’s too cold. Check Facebook for announcements.
Drop-ins are always welcome. Wear warm clothes, good boots, and work gloves if you’ve got them.

FAQs

How many gallons of sap does it take to make a gallon of syrup?

It depends on the concentration of the sugars in the sap, but it usually takes between thirty and fifty gallons of sap to make a gallon of syrup. A 5 gallon bucket of sap will generally yield about two cups of syrup.

Why are a bunch of tree-huggers poking holes in trees?

We believe that reciprocity is the key to a healthy relationship with nature. The annual sap harvest is the start of our foraging year, as the gift of maple sugar tempts us out of our cozy winter nests. It gives us the opportunity to observe our ecosystem as the first green shoots of the new spring start to poke their way up through the snow. In exchange, we make sure that we follow best practices for tapping trees without harming them, and we take care of the tree for at least as long as it takes for the hole to heal. That way, both we and the trees come out better than if we had simply ignored each other.

Who pays for all this?

We are grateful to the Muskegon Community Foundation for their support of this year’s sugarbush with a $1000 grant, which is covering about two thirds of the expenses for the sugarbush this year. Most of the rest comes out of Wiley’s pocket, but you can make that less true by supporting us on Ko-Fi.

Can I buy some of the syrup?

Every cup of syrup that we make represents several hours of work prepping firewood, tending the trees, and managing the boil. If we were going to charge fairly for that labor, only obscenely wealthy people would be able to afford it. Instead, everybody who helps to make the syrup gets to share in the harvest at the end, and the surplus gets distributed to breakrooms and gathering places around town so that as many people can enjoy it as possible.

(That being said, if you *are* obscenely wealthy, hit us up. In exchange for a truly unreasonable amount of money, and a commitment to read Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall, you will get 16oz of extremely authentic maple syrup, and a story that no one else at the dinner party will be able to top.)