ANSON — Maple syrup producer Arnold Luce can remember when the annual Maine Maple Sunday event began, more than three decades ago, when he was president of the Maine Maple Producers Association.
There was a curiosity about making maple syrup that producers such as Luce always would hear around this time of year, when the sap starts to flow and producers small and large would start the boilers and kick off the season.
“People would always come up to us and start asking, ‘Have you started boiling? Can we come see?'” Luce said.
Hoping to tap into that curiosity, Luce said the board decided to launch the first Maine Maple Sunday and invite the public to visit a local syrup producer to learn about how syrup gets made.
On Sunday, surrounded by visitors and family at his Anson farm, Luce said the event has grown beyond his expectations over the years. The Luce’s sugar house was among 100 across the state that opened their doors to the public Sunday for the 32nd annual Maine Maple Sunday. During the statewide celebration of the industry, visitors who braved the cold to visit a sugar house were treated to demonstrations of syrup making, sugar bush tours and a variety of maple-inspired sweet treats for the trying.
“It’s a good crowd for as cold as it is,” Luce said as he stood inside the sugar house while a visitors milled around, taste-testing the wares. A dozen family members intermingled with the visitors to the sugar house, making the food, selling syrup and offering samples. Luce’s family has been making syrup since 1795, passing down the tradition from generation to generation, to the current 3,000-tap operation.
“Though we use a lot more technology now,” he said.
The cold weather, which remained in the mid-teens in Anson, was not enough to deter visitors, though it was enough to delay the season from full swing.
While production started last week in most of the state, the season still wasn’t underway in Anson because it was too cold. Ideal conditions for sap collection require temperatures in the 20s during the night and peaking in the mid-40s during the day.
At Strawberry Hill Farm in Skowhegan, Marie and Roger Barber, husband and wife of 47 years, said they make it out to the maple syrup festivities every year no matter the weather. The two were sampling maple taffy, made from tossing the syrup into the snow and breaking off frozen pieces.
Roger Barber, 77, said he remembers making syrup with his father, walking around in snowshoes and filling up a bucket pulled on a sled by a horse while he was growing up in Quebec.
“The memories, they just come back when you’re out here,” he said.
Maine’s maple syrup industry, which is the third-largest in the nation, contributes nearly $30 million directly to the Maine economy each year, according to a University of Maine study. The industry generates 567 full- and part-time jobs and $17.3 million in labor income.
In Skowhegan, Jim Smith, owner of Smith Brothers Maple, said he has been participating in the annual event for about 20 years and the day is traditionally a great day for sales.
“We have ice cream and syrup, maple cream, maple fudge,” he said, ticking off some of the different treats being offered to visitors this year. “Things have been pretty steady here today. Things are going pretty good.”
Kaitlin Schroeder — 861-9252
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