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From Dark Amber to Light Amber – a season’s worth of samples. Photos submitted by Kirstin van den Berg
Recently Minnesota Governor Tim Walz signed a proclamation making March the “Maple Month.”
Walz wrote, “The annual spring ritual of tapping trees and producing maple syrup and making maple syrup products marks nature’s transition from winter to spring in Minnesota’s hardwood forests. Minnesota’s maple syrup producers have been busy preparing for the annual spring sap runs. Minnesota is one of just seventeen states that produce pure maple syrup and Minnesota is both the westernmost and northernmost state in the United States to produce maple syrup. Producers from Minnesota have won state, national, and international awards for the quality of their maple syrup and maple products.”
The idea for the proclamation came from Kirstin van den Berg, co-founder and owner of the Lutsen-based Sawtooth Mountain Maple Syrup Company. Her family has been practicing the sweet science of maple sugaring since 1996.
“We’ve been busy tapping trees and seeing a little sap. Hopefully, it will be a good year,” said Kirstin.
Jim Cordes (Chris and Kirstin’s father) washing out 55-gallon drums.
In order to be ready for the sugar season, the crew starts getting ready when it’s cold and there is still lots of snow on the ground.
“We started in the third week in January,” said Kirstin. “This year, we added two thousand taps which brought our total number to 28,000 taps. That’s the most taps we have ever had in one season. We also worked hard to make sure our equipment was cleaned, working properly, and ready to go when the sap started to run.”
When the extreme cold came in late February, Kirstin said the crew took a break and rested to get ready for the upcoming season.
This year the snowpack hasn’t been too bad, about knee-deep, she said, adding the work crew tromps through the maple tree forest on snowshoes as they go about tapping trees and checking for leaks in the blue lines that carry the sap to the sugar shack.
Located eight miles up the Caribou Trail from Lake Superior in the ruggedly beautiful Sawtooth Mountains, the family run operation began in 1996. Throughout the years, the business has grown and changed as the owners, Chris Cordes, Greg Nichols, and Kirstin van den Berg continued to add more trees to the tap lines and expanded the capabilities of their sugar house where the maple syrup is boiled down to the finished product. In 2019, Dark Amber was the dominant grade. It had a “robust maple taste with a delicate finish, like butterscotch,” but only time will tell what this year’s predominant flavor will be.
Kirstin van den Berg setting a tap.
That same year, 2019, the company was the winner of the 2019 National Blue Ribbon for Excellence in Pure Maple Products.
The award came from the North American Maple Syrup Council (NAMSC) and the International Maple Syrup Institute (IMSI).
One of the recent business changes was selling the bottling and labeling portion of their company in 2015 to Michael and Carrie Baker. The Bakers now own and operate the Wild Country Maple Syrup brand made from the syrup produced by Sawtooth Mountain Maple Syrup Company.
Greg Nichols and Chris Cordes working the evaporator.
Meanwhile, Kirstin said she and her partners (Greg is her husband and Chris is her brother) sell 55-gallon drums of syrup to a wide variety of businesses; three in the region are Castle Danger in Two Harbors, plus Wild State Cider and Duluth Cider in Duluth.
As the largest USDA Certified Organic maple syrup producer in the Midwest, Kirstin said they are also one of the few places that produce their syrup from trees located on one site. The family owns approximately 330 acres and leases about 35 acres from the U.S. Forest Service.
When asked what their best year was, Kirstin replied, “In 2016, we produced 8,320 gallons of maple syrup that was boiled down from 320,000 gallons of syrup. Two years later, in 2018, we didn’t produce half that amount. Everything was ready, but Mother Nature didn’t cooperate, and there was nothing we could do about it. It’s farming. You’re at the mercy of the weather.”
Sugar Maker Calvin Waddell taking a tapping break with his two furry friends.
Despite some down years, overall, the business has been good. Good enough, said Kirstin, to add her son Calvin (who is transitioning into ownership of the business), Ian Andrus and several seasonal employees. They have also been upgrading equipment to make it more energy efficient and to help expand their sap harvest capabilities.
The new equipment upgrades have allowed the company to add more taps and increase the amount of syrup produced. “We’re all crossing our fingers that this will be a good year.”
Tapping crew – Chris Cordes, Greg Nichols, Calvin Waddell, Ian Andrus and Kirstin van den Berg.
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