Maple Sugar --Boiling Month
Page Navigation Buttons---WENDJIDU ZINZIBAHKWUD -- Real Sugar (Maple)
Sugarmaking -- ishkwaamizige in Anishinaabemowin -- happened
for several weeks during zhwigun, spring. Anishnabeg people
rarelky used salt. Sugar was a basic seasoning for grains and
breads, stews, teas, berries, vegetables. Large amounts were made
during the few weeks each spring when the maple sap ran. Maple
sugar was so important that it gave its name to the month (late
March-April, in northern Minnesota) when sugaring took place:
Izhkigamisegi Geezis, the Moon (month) of boiling.
Nodinens (Little Wind), a Mille Lacs Band Ojibwe from central Minnesota, was 74 in
1910 or so when she told Frances Densmore about sugaring in the old days. She
describes going to and building the winter hunting camp for 6 families. The wigwams
would be insulated with evergreen boughs, dirt, and snow shoveled onto a framework
of logs, covered with birchbark and woven mats. The men would leave for deep woods
hunting and trapping. During the winter, women dried meat the men brought in.
Then....
Toward the last of winter, my father would say "One month after another has gone by.
Spring is near. We must get back to our other work." So the women wrapped the dried
meat tightly in tanned deerskins and the men packed their furs on sleds or toboggans.
Once there was a fearful snowstorm when we were starting. My father quickly made
snowshoes from branches for all the older people.A toboggan is shown leaning by the door of this winter house. The
Anishnaabe word for it is nobugidaban, from nobug, flat, and
daban, drag, "Toboggan" is a French mispronunciation of the
word. These flat-bottomed snow carriers were made of hard wood,
cut during winter when the trees have no sap. The front end is
heated by boiling then bent upwards. Usually a rawhide covered
the bent front end, to protect riders. Loads were tied onto cleats along the sides. Dogs
or several people pulled it from the front. A strap in the rear was held by the driver or
a companion running behind as a brake to prevent slides from getting out of control
downhill. It required only the width of a woods footpath to carry large loads. Sleds or
sledges required wider paths, were harder to pull, usually smaller, constructions made
with bodies raised above bent runners. Small ones could quickly be improvised in the
winter woods from bent and tied branches, as Nodinens' father did with improvised
bear-paw snowshoes. Nodinens continues:When we got to the sugar bush we took the birch-bark dishes out of
storage and the women began tapping the trees. [Ojiguigun were
taps pounded into cut wedges, sealed around the spiles with hot
pitch (or later drilled) about 3" deep, on the sunny side, about 3'
above the roots. Negwakwun were spiles, made of large elderberryTraditional Native Maple Sugar
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