Tapping into the “Wildwood

Tapping into the Tapping into the “Wildwood” “Wildwood”

Maple syrup season brings family back to home farm

BY ANNA HAYNES | STAFF WRITER

ST. JOSEPH – Kraemer Lake Wildwood is a county park built around a family-run maple syrup operation. Every spring, Tom and Shelly Carlson, along with their kids, Ben and Addie, extended family and friends venture into the sugar bush to tap, boil and bottle. Shelly has been in the sugar bush since she was a child.

“I remember taking the generator out there,” Shelly said. “We had corded drills and I had to follow and keep the cords from being tangled. It was a chance to hang out with my dad’s friends and brothers. My dad died on March 18, 1999. One of the last things my brother did was bring him a sample of the syrup before he died. It was the middle of the sugar season.” Shelly’s father, Wally, began tapping the Wildwood maple trees in 1979. It was his passion and drive that brought the family out into the forest. The spring after her father passed away, Tom and Shelly had to take over the tapping.

“We went out for a walk in the woods that June and noticed all the trees were still tapped,”

PHOTOS BY ANNA HAYNES (Above) Tom Carlson (from left) and his son, Ben Carlson, show a local tour group the reverse osmosis machine on the back side of the sugar shack March 14 at Kraemer Lake Wildwood maple syrup operation. Listening are Holly Nelson (continuing to right), Adam Nelson, Brenda Hall and Nick Thielen. (Left) Shelly Carlson peers into the boiler as water evaporates, turning maple sap into syrup.

Shelly said. “We knew someone had to take over the operation. We basically did all the work that spring, and then we took charge of the operation. A few of my brothers helped out, so it was always a family situation. My mom was also involved at that time.”

“When we got the new evaporator in 2004, that was when our family really took on the project,” Tom said. “When the county fi nally bought the park, it was always an agreement that we’d continue tapping the trees; it was a foregone conclusion.”

In 2007, Wildwood became Kraemer Lake Wildwood County Park. It was important to Shelly’s mother, Dorothy, that Wildwood stay in the name of the park. Shelly’s father named the sugar bush “Wildwood” after his old deercamp in Northern Minnesota. Originally, the patch of land near St Joseph was used for raising registered Morgan horses, but when Wally learned he had a sugar bush, he started tapping his trees.

“My brother made birch syrup in Alaska,” Shelly said. “Fred was tapping trees and I think that’s what got my dad into it. My dad was the kind of person who loved to get things from his land. Maple syrup just made sense.”

Wildwood Ranch Maple Syrup remains a family operation. Shelly, Tom, Addie and Ben help out all sugar season.

“We all kinda do everything,” Tom said. “Whoever is available.

Versatility. It runs in the family.

Wildwood page 5

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Maple sap is collected using bags and gallon buckets attached to taps inside the trees, March 14 in Kraemer Lake Wildwood County Park. Bags must be emptied every two to fi ve days, depending on the weather in March and April.

PHOTOS BY ANNA HAYNES Holly Nelson (from left), Nick Thielen and Brenda Hall stand outside the sugar shack with Shelly Carlson and her daughter, Addie Carlson, on a tour of the Wildwood maple syrup operation. Behind them are sap holding tanks.

Wildwood

from page 4

I do the fi ring and don’t usually empty the buckets. Ben does the RO [reverse osmosis] machine and Addie is better at bottling – there’s less spills when she’s around, but everyone can do everything”

A more recent advancement to the Wildwood maple syrup is the (RO) machine into the back of the sugar shack. The RO fi lters out most of the water molecules from the sap and leaves the larger sugar molecules. This means the sap can be boiled less often and make more syrup from each boil because of the amount of water already removed.

“We make a lot of fi ltered water,” Shelly said. “Nearly all of the water is used for cleaning. We save about 800 gallons of water every day.”

“We focus on effi ciency,” Tom said. “The RO takes a lot of the work out of it; there’s a lot more things to watch and do. With better knowledge of how to make a better product, we focus on that and use what we know and consistently put out a

Shelly Carlson is the vice president of the Minnesota Maple Syrup Producer’s Association. She invites anyone interested in making maple syrup or getting involved to go to mmspa.org and join the association.

really nice product all the time. Some things have stayed the same; we still gotta boil it and bottle it.”

“We make a better product that we used to,” Shelly said. “Now, we’re right on top of everything. We’ve gone to conventions, gotten education, done reading, talked to other sugar makers, and been around long enough that we’ve learned a lot from when we’ve started. There’s always improvements but right now, it’s working well.”

Tom and Shelly have tree taps attached to bags,

Wildwood page 6

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buckets, and an elaborate vacuum tube system that goes through the forest. Visitors have a chance to see and learn about several different methods of sap collection, but they aren’t just educational material.

“You need buckets because the tubing can’t go everywhere,” Tom said. “It only works well where you have a valley where you can slope it all. You can’t go uphill with a tube. We’re lucky to have such a nice valley next to the lake.”

“My brothers would be sad if they couldn’t empty buckets and bags,” Shelly said. “I think the vacuum tubing is the way to go; it’s less work and you get way more sap. On days like this, when the bags don’t have a drop, there is still sap from the tubes because it can fake out the tree and give pressure like the freezing and thawing would usually do.”

If it doesn’t freeze at night and warm up during the day, the sap doesn’t run. The trees require a temperature and pressure change to give up their sap, but a vacuum tube system bypasses part of that problem. The amount of sap gathered in a day could be as little as 400 gallons when it didn’t freeze the night before, or up to 1,200 gallons on a great day.

A lot has changed for Tom and Shelly since her dad ran the sugar bush, but even if their process has evolved over the years, their reason for coming to the woods has stayed the same.

“My family likes to come out,” Shelly said. “My nieces and nephews are here at least once a season. Once my mother passed away, things really changed because there was no gathering spot, her house was gone. Now this is the gathering spot. It’s a proud family tradition. I’m the youngest of eight; there’s a couple brothers that live around here that I see pretty regularly. But, I see everyone at sugar season, they come for their coffee and cookies like at grandma’s, and it’s nice to have the help.”

Spring is a time of celebration for the Carlsons.

“Both kids were born during the sugar season so we celebrate birthdays here and, of course, we make maple cake,” Shelly said. “And, we always have our Easter out here.”

“It’s the maple season,” Tom said. “It’s spring, it’s Grandpa’s legacy, and we’re coming back to the farm together.”

“It’s just the draw of the tradition. I don’t know what I’d do without it,” Shelly said. “We’ll keep going as long as our bodies let us. Living in rubber boots for two months, it’s hard work. It’s something unique and all the work we put into it, and the connection to my dad, I’d hate to lose that. It kinda just got into our blood.”

Brenda Hall watches as Tom Carlson explains the process of boiling maple sap into syrup.

PHOTOS BY ANNA HAYNES

“A TASTE OF MAPLE”

This is Shelly Carlson’s favorite maple syrup cake recipe from the book, “A Taste of Maple,” copyright 1986 by Kathryn H. Palmer.

MAPLE SYRUP CAKE

• 1/2 cup butter, • 2-1/2 cups fl our softened • 2 tsp. baking powder • 1 cup sugar • 2/3 tsp. baking soda • 2 eggs, beaten • 1/2 tsp. ginger • 1 cup maple syrup • 1/2 cup hot water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter, gradually add sugar. Stir in beaten eggs and maple syrup. Sift together fl our, baking powder, baking soda and ginger. Add alternately with hot water to creamed mixture. Bake in a greased angel food cake pan for about 50 minutes. Cover with maple icing and decorate with walnut halves.

MAPLE ICING

• 2 egg whites • 1 cup maple syrup

Beat egg whites until fairly stiff . Cook maple syrup until it spins a thread (233 to 234 degrees on a candy thermometer). Slowly pour syrup over egg whites, beating until icing stands in fi rm peaks.

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