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Like Maple Syrup, Vermont’s Identity Is Complex and Messy

My Research on 'Sugaring' Connects Me With Stories of a Rustic, Self-Reliant State

By Michael Lange
March 8, 2018

When people all over the country think of Vermont, they think of maple. No matter the reasons that people come here—skiing and leaf-peeping are two—they often take some Vermont home, literally, distilled into a bottle of syrup.

How, exactly, did Vermont come to mean maple?

I live in Vermont, and I do research on the making of maple syrup. It’s called sugaring or sugarmaking around here, which is a throwback to the time when most of the maple sap collected was …

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