UMaine Page Farm and Home Museum Celebrating Maple Syrup Season
Contact: Patty Henner, (207) 581-4100, George Manlove, (207) 581-3756
ORONO — The UMaine Page Farm and Home Museum in Orono is celebrating maple syrup season with a public field trip to a sugaring operation on March 31 and Maine Maple Sunday events on campus for children April 3.
The annual spring field trip March 31 will travel to Breakneck Ridge Farm near Monson to see a family-run sugaring operation, in addition to the farm’s buffalo and deer farm. Please call (207) 581-4100 for reservations and details. Participants should plan to dress warmly and wear appropriate shoes.
The van leaves at 8 a.m. from the museum and will return to the Orono campus by 4 p.m., says Patricia Henner, Page Farm and Home Museum director. The cost is $30 per person and includes transportation and a light lunch in a Guilford cafe. Space is limited. The trip also will visit Griff’s Blacksmith Shop near Guildford.
Breakneck Ridge Farm will offer demonstrations of its maple sugar operations and a tour of the farm’s “sugarbush,” often hundreds of sugar maple trees feeding sweet sap into metal buckets or plastic tubing leading to the sugar house, where sap is rendered into syrup or carmelized for candy.
Griff’s also will demonstrate blacksmithing, and both businesses will open their gift shops for visitors during the day.
On April 1, Henner and Page Farm and Home Museum volunteers are offering their annual Maple Syrup Sunday program, an afternoon of games and education about one of Maine’s oldest agricultural industries.
With Maine being one of the biggest producers of pure maple syrup in the world, Henner says the museum looks forward to teaching children about maple sugaring and visiting the university’s small maple sugar operation in University Forest on College Avenue Extension. The half-day program always is extremely well-attended, she says.
“Sugaring” is one of New England’s oldest agricultural enterprises and is traditionally the first harvest of the year following winter, Henner says. Maple syrup season is one of the first cheerful harbingers of spring.
Sugaring also was first practiced by Native American Indians, and learned by colonists and settlers in New England. Settlers referred to maple syrup as Indian sugar or Indian molasses.
Because the official Maine Maple Sunday — the last Sunday in March — falls on Easter Sunday this year, Henner is holding the UMaine annual event April 3.
The program has a shared mission: a celebration of Maine maple sugaring and historic preservation. The program starts at 1 p.m. with a video, “The Maple Sugaring Story,” at the Page Farm and Home Museum. After the film, children grouped by grade levels (K-6), will play games and hear stories as part of a learning exercise. Henner says the program also will explore some of the Indian legends about maple syrup.
“At 2:30 p.m. we will drive out to the University of Maine maple sugaring operation on College Avenue Extension,” Henner says, where participants will get a guided walking tour of the university’s sugar bush, where the maple sugaring story begins, then explore the sugarhouse where sap is simmered, before enjoying a sample of fresh maple syrup straight from the evaporator and poured over vanilla ice cream.
“It is a maple sugar sundae on Maine Maple Sunday,” says Henner.
To cover the costs of materials, the non-profit educational museum is asking for a $3 per child reimbursement. Registration information is available by calling the museum at 581-4100. Information about Page Farm and Home Museum exhibits and mission can be found on the website.
The museum, one of its kind in the area, reflects the many varied aspects of farming and farm life from 1865 to 1940. Exhibits include farm equipment and vehicles, poultry, dairy, 4-H, ice harvesting, in addition to a blacksmith shop, an exhibit by the Orono Historical Society and a gift shop in an old-fashioned general store setting.