What started out as a way to teach Scouts the fine art of making maple syrup now draws hundreds of people each year to an out-of-the-way place in Oconto County.
Hundreds of people from babies in strollers to senior citizens headed to Bear Paw Scout Camp east of Mountain April 11 for the Bear Paw Maple Syrup Days Open House.
“This is the only maple syrup Scouting program in the nation where we teach kids how to do it, and we’ve been running this program here at Bear Paw for over 20 years now,” event organizer Jason Brefczynski said. “Last year was our 20th year.”
Brefczynski is a volunteer with the Bay-Lakes Council, which operates the camp that sits on the shore of Bear Paw Lake in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest.
“Today’s event is an open house event for all ages,” he said. “For most of that 20 years, we just did it for Scouts, kids that are in middle school and high school. We ran an exclusive program for them teaching them everything from A to Z on how to make maple syrup. That wasn’t good enough for everyone. All these wonderful young kids kept beating at our door and said, ‘We want to come, too.’ We created an event that is age-appropriate for everyone. We’ve been doing the open house for 12 years.”
Representatives from the Wisconsin Maple Producers Association attended the first open house for the group’s first tap.
“We’ve hosted that twice, last year and 12 years ago,” Brefczynski said. “We usually do that the third weekend in March, but this is the first time we’re running the event in April. We’re going to decide whether we keep it in April or if we’re going to move it to March. We haven’t made a decision yet.”
Besides getting to see and understand the process of making maple syrup, visitors to the open house also had the opportunity to participate in other activities.
Some of them decided to make their own pudgy pie, a popular campfire treat, while others chose to visit the camp’s rock climbing wall; collect maple sap from buckets; take a nature hike or wagon ride; learn first aid skills; or make a bird feeder out of a pine cone and peanut butter.
On the other hand, the day is set aside for maple syrup. Bear Paw Scout Camp taps about 1,100 sugar and black maple trees. About 800 are tapped with gravity feed tubing and 300 are tapped with drop lines, with the sap dripping into buckets.
“We get people to understand that it’s not something that you just go up to a tree, you tap it and you drink it,” Brefczynski said. “All of the extra work that goes on is unbelievable. We have maple syrup stations. We have our STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) building, which hosts what we call a sugar shack. Maple syrup is very science-related, so that’s why we have it in the STEM building.
“Kids can learn how to tap a tree, they can help collect our sap,” he said. “We also have gravity tubes running from tree to tree, so they can also learn about that. You can listen to people talk about stuff, but until you do it, that’s where you really learn. You have to get your hands dirty to understand how things work and happen. Some people can do it from a book, but most people enjoy doing it hands-on.”
It takes about 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup.
“Wisconsin is the fifth-largest producer of maple syrup,” Brefczynski said. “Obviously Canada is No. 1 and Vermont, Massachusetts and New Hampshire make a ton of it. It’s a huge agricultural crop for Wisconsin and it’s unbelievable how much we make here.
“You can buy real maple syrup at a grocery store,” Brefczynski said. “Real maple syrup is a completely organic sugar that comes from the tree. Most of the pancake syrups you buy are corn syrup, and that makes a huge difference in texture and taste.”
Up to 600 people have visited past open houses and Brefczynski said he is hoping for at least 300 this year.
Sunshine and temperatures hovering in the low 50s greeted several camp visitors shortly after the event kicked off at 9 a.m.
“The day we had 600 people here, it was a high (temperature) of 26 and it started off at 5 degrees,” Brefczynski said. “Getting the word out and people’s schedules. That’s the big thing that matters.”
Visitors had a chance to sample some of the camp’s syrup at a brunch that also included pancakes, eggs and sausage.
“First of all, you can’t have pancakes without maple syrup,” Brefczynski said. “If we don’t continue to teach people how to make maple syrup, that art will get lost. There’s a lot of science, history, effort and time that goes into making that bottle of syrup. We want to give kids and families an opportunity to see how that’s done and how much work it takes to make it.”
Eli Kittel, 7, of Kaukauna, enjoys a pudgy pie made with apple pie filling and maple syrup during the Bear Paw Maple Syrup Days Open House. Other activities the event included rock climbing, learning first aid skills, planting maple trees and learning how maple syrup is made. (Greg Seubert)
Mason Larsen, 8, of New London, uses a glue gun to assemble a wooden wagon. (Greg Seubert)
