Maple Weekend: Local producers share their craft at end of ‘weirdest season’
Zachary Canaperi/Watertown Daily Times
Brandon Zehr, owner of Champion Peak Maple in Copenhagen, stokes the fire burning hot inside the sugar shack, March 2024. Zachary Canaperi/Watertown Daily Times
COPENHAGEN— It was a slow and sleepy snow that fell on Saturday morning outside of Champion Peak Maple, covering the cars in the small, plowed lot, and the fields and maple woods behind.
Inside the Copenhagen sugar shack people were moving at a similar pace, not hurried as they stood and watched a thick cloud of steam billow from the wood-fired boiler.
All except Brandon Zehr, Champion Peak’s owner, who was responsible for producing the syrup.
Brandon Zehr, owner of Champion Peak Maple in Copenhagen, takes a sample of syrup from the boiler in the sugar shack during a Maple Weekend open house. Zachary Canaperi/Watertown Daily Times
Zehr would have his hands full all day long, feeding wood into the boiler, testing syrup samples, making sugar on snow — all while educating visitors on the process.
In addition to all the physical work involved in sugaring, the uncertainty of it is another stressor involved.
This season, Zehr said, has been filled with uncertainty.
“It is the weirdest season I have ever seen,” he said.
What has made it so out of the ordinary is the lack of snowfall and extended periods of warmer temperatures in late winter. Syruping requires temperatures to stay within a narrow range, with below freezing nights and above freeing days. The season began normally at Champion Peak.
The sugar shack at Champion Peak Maple, surrounded by steam coming from the boiler inside. Zachary Canaperi/Watertown Daily Times
During the second week of February, temperatures landed within the ideal range, but soon after a cold snap prevented sap from flowing for the following three weeks. Since then, temperatures have mostly been too warm.
“This year it’s been just so warm for so long.” Zehr explained. “Typically — like last year — we have sap all the way through until about the 15th of April.”
Just a few miles away from Champion Peak is O’Dell’s Tug Hill Maple. Owner Kelly O’Dell has had a similarly strange season.
Kelly O’Dell, owner of O’Dell’s Tug Hill Maple in Copenhagen, stands behind a cloud of smoke in the sugar shack at Champion Peak Maple on Saturday morning. Zachary Canaperi/Watertown Daily Times
“This year we tapped earlier than ever. We were tapped the first week of February,” O’Dell said.
“Thank goodness we had a good run,” O’Dell said, because since then, “It has been on and off.”
“We thought it was over with the warm weather we had,” he added.
Although the outlook may not be great, Zehr remains optimistic.
“We are hopeful next week is going to be an awesome, amazing week, but I will tell you on June first how the season goes,” he said.
While Zehr was manning the boiler, families watched, sampled the syrup and taffy and played with a friendly black labrador retriever and a rambunctious beagle.
Under the guidance of Watertown’s Troop 496 Boy Scouts, who were helping at the sugar shack, children were given the opportunity to participate in some syruping activities.
One of the Scouts, Brayden Bell, 15, was taking kids outdoors to retrieve sap from a nearby tree.
Children play with a beagle at Champion Maple in Copenhagen on Saturday morning during a Maple Weekend tour. Zachary Canaperi/Watertown Daily Times
It was a tall maple with a broad crown, and children walked through tire tracks made by a tractor in the snow for about 100 feet to arrive at its base. From there, they could see how the clear liquid is collected from the trunk, and then take some back to pour into the boiler.
Boy Scout Brayden Bell, left, teaches children how to tap a tree Saturday morning at Champion Peak Maple. Zachary Canaperi/Watertown Daily Times
Bell, using a tree trunk by the shack’s entrance, demonstrated how to drill a tap. Afterward he allowed volunteers to try it for themselves.
Bell said his favorite part about working with the sugar shack is making sure people have a good time.
“I like helping out. I like watching everybody have fun. It’s amazing watching everybody be this happy. Watching smiles on their faces,” he said.
Bell is also interested in the production process.
“I remember when I came here a couple of months ago, we went back there and there were hundreds and thousands of sap trees and tubing. This is so amazing watching it. You saw all the tubing going to one place, and that place was the boiler,” he said.
Families walk toward a large maple tree at Champion Peak Maple in Copenhagen, where Boy Scout Brayden Bell will show them how sap is collected. Zachary Canaperi/Watertown Daily Times
Zehr said that inspiring younger people like Bell is one of the main purposes of running the sugar shack. The Zehr family left the Alsace region near the France-Germany Border for the United States in 1838 and began making syrup soon after.
Zehr wants to keep alive the old-school traditions that were used by his predecessors.
“We believe that everybody should be able to enjoy the old-school experience,” he said. “These little kids were out tapping their own tree, gathering their own bucket. For a lot of people, they have never been able to experience that. To us, that is more important than a lot of stuff.”