Rebecca Manthey stood out in the rain at the entrance of Old Fort Western keeping watch over a cast iron kettle of boiling sap hooked to a tripod over a wood fire.

Manthey and the rest of the Old Fort Western staff — decked out in 18th-century attire — joined sugar houses across the state in observance of Maine Maple Sunday.

The annual event is sponsored by the Department of Agriculture and the Maine Maple Producers Association.

She said the rain hadn’t kept people from coming to enjoy all the events at the fort surrounding the production of Maple syrup.

“In the 18th century, you would be boiling sap in the woods, so I would be in the woods,” Manthey explained to the families who circled around her. “People spent weeks and weeks in the woods. You don’t want to cook it to fast or it would burn. When it looks like the right consistency then you send it (into the kitchen) to be made into sugar.”

Manthey said she enjoyed portraying an 18th-century woman, even in the rain, which didn’t seem to bother visitors either. There was a steady stream of families touring the fort and enjoying the maple syrup demonstrations.

Judy Johnston and Donna Porter were in the fort’s parlor turning syrup into sugar by boiling it to a thicker consistency. Once almost all the water has been boiled off, all that would be left is a solid sugar.

“Sugar kept better than syrup,” Porter said. “You would have gallons and gallons of syrup, but if a mold grew on top of it you wouldn’t want to use it. Turning it into sugar is a good way to preserve it.”

In the fort’s kitchen, Jeanne Payson, also on the fort staff, handed tiny squares of hearth-baked Indian corn bread covered in syrup to visitors braving the cold, rainy day. Corn bread, she said is a typical New England dish that Native Americans taught colonists how to make.

Linda Novak, the fort’s director and curator, said last year about 150 people attended the event, which includes tapping a 150-year-old Maple tree near Old Fort Western with a hand drill.

Novak said this is the 19th year the 1754 National Historic Landmark on the Kennebec River participated in Maple Syrup Sunday.

More than 125 sugar houses in Maine were open to visitors Sunday to celebrate maple syrup production and take part in syrup and candy sampling, demonstrations of syrup making, along with a variety of other activities including sugarbush tours and wagon rides.

Karen Cloutier and her daughter-in-law, Kate Schnopp, both from Winthrop, stopped in at Mike’s Sugar House in Winthrop. Cloutier said she’s leaving for Florida on Tuesday and needed some maple syrup to bring to her dad.

Cloutier said Maine Maple Sunday was a tradition in her family.

“There’s nothing like Maple syrup and Maine’s better than Vermont’s,” said the 43-year-old Alternative Services Inc. administrator.

Schnopp, 24, who works at the Annabessacook Veterinarian Clinic, said she liked all the free samples.

Mike Smith has been in the maple sugaring business since 1998. On Sunday, Smith only had the small evaporator going. He was afraid visitors would burn themselves on the larger size evaporator in the middle of the shack.

Smith said he was surprised that the rain didn’t keep people away. His shack was packed with families who enjoyed watching the sugaring operation and smelling the maple syrupy vapors that filled the air.

Smith e said the sap enters the sugar house through pipes that poor into a tank for preheating. Then it flows into chambers where the sap is cooked between 4 and 5 hours and turned into syrup.

He said the unseasonably warm temperatures have been playing havoc with sap production.

“We’re worried that we might lose between 50 and 65 percent of our normal crop, mostly because of the way the weather’s been,” Smith said. “It’s too warm. Not cold enough.”

Michelle Hartman of Winthrop came with her five-year-old son Connor and partner, Aaron Cook.

“We just moved to Winthrop and live three miles away so we thought we would check out our community,” Hartman said. “They gave Connor ice cream with maple syrup on it. Yummy! You should try it in tea. Maple syrup is great in tea.”

Currently, Maine has 1.47 million taps and produced 360,000 gallons of maple syrup last season, a 14 percent increase from 2010. The latest annual figures show that the state generated nearly $13 million in revenue from the maple industry.

Mechele Cooper — 621-5663

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