A reader sent an e-mail to the Creative Director of this paper and she forwarded it to me. Steve Meneely had read my “Road Trip” column and suggested that someone might take another trip to what he described as “the (only) national maple syrup festival.” So I did.
The National Maple Syrup Festival is held on the first two weekends of March at Burton’s Maplewood Farm in Medora, Indiana. Tim and Angie Burton, proprietors of the syrup-making operation, are on hand to lead tours of the farm and to discuss and explain the process of extracting sap from maple trees and converting it to sugar and syrup.
On March 2nd, I took a leisurely road trip down Indiana highway 37 south, through Bloomington, past Monroe Lake, into and out of the Hoosier National Forest and into Medora, where festival attendants meet at the Medora Community School. There, I exchanged canned food for a discount on my ticket and received a wristband and a coupon for a free bag of King Arthur flour. The wristband gave me a seat on a yellow school bus that, after “Tim The Greeter’s” welcome pitch, meandered 4 miles through the knobs of Medora to the front gate of Burton’s Maplewood Farm.
An audiotape on the school bus gives the history of Burton’s farm, Angie Burton’s ties to one of the original settlers, and the production of maple sugar. At the farm, visitors meet Sugar, a gentle Rottweiler, and her friend Flinn, a terrier mix.
On this brisk March day, I breakfasted at Pat’s Snack Shack, (named after grandmother Patricia and father, Pat) where a trio sang Irish songs and played guitar, mandolin and violin. On the front porch of the sugarhouse, Bill Bailey entertained guests with his collection of rhythmic instruments, which included washboards, washtubs, tambourines and spoons. Inside the sugar house, Doyle Myers played and sang the official song of the
festival, “Medora Mountains,” Native American re-enactors warmed themselves
in front of a huge wood-burning fireplace, and a woman dressed in period clothing rocked and churned butter using a 100 year-old churn. The sugarhouse is where the Burton’s Volcano 2000 evaporator is housed, and where the production of maple syrup and sugar is carried out.
Tours of the farm start at the sugarhouse, and on this day, Tim was the lead, though he was accompanied by three young ladies who had attended Camp
photo by CJ Woods III
Native American re-enactors producing syrup in the way that the early Indiana settlers were taught.
About Face (see “A Bigger Story”) and who normally guide the tours. We wound down trails and into groves of maple trees bearing taps and tin pails. Tim stopped at points to lecture and take questions from the assembled group. Farther down the path, we encountered an encampment of Native Americans attending kettles over fires. The camps were accurate depictions of the way in which maple sugar was produced at the time the first white settlers came to Indiana; some of the Native American re-enactors came from as far as Oklahoma.
There is plenty to see and do on the Burton’s farm. A “Plein Air” artist was working at the Native American settlements; a petting zoo entertained the little (and big) ones. Wagons drawn by draft horses offered rides around the farm and potter Tom Wintczak, wearing 18th century attire, demonstrated “Sgraffitto” decoration. Blacksmith John Pia was there with his bride, Traci, to demonstrate the ancient art of the hammering of iron. And I saw Steve Meneely, the man who started me down the highway to the festival, behind a sign that said “Dutch Oven Cooking.”
The National Maple Syrup Festival continues on March 9th and 10th. Medora, Indiana is a very scenic drive from Indianapolis, and the festival is a delight. Your knowledge of the production of maple syrup starts with the audio in the shuttle bus and continues throughout the day, with tours, entertainers, artisans and Native American re-enactors producing syrup in the way that the early Indiana settlers were taught.
For more information, visit the website at nationalmaplesyrupfestival.com.
