MAPLE SUGAR TIME AT NATIONAL LAKESHORE

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Date: February 17, 2012
Contact: Ryan Koepke, 219-395-1882

INDIANA DUNES NATIONAL LAKESHORE: Enjoy a sweet taste of our shared Indiana dunes heritage at the annual Maple Sugar Time. Join National Park Service rangers and volunteers at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore's historic Chellberg Farm from 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. on the weekends of March 3 & 4 and March 10 & 11, 2012 for this fun and educational event marking the unofficial start of spring.

Over the past 400 years, pure maple sugar and syrup have played very different roles in the lives of dune's residents. This difference is as much a result of our changing relationship to our natural resources as it is a change in technology. Take a short easy stroll down the farm trail and learn why American Indians first boiled maple sap into sugar and how latter European settlers used large iron kettles to make the sap into syrup. Then, stand in the warm steam of the sugar shack where sap is boiled using the same methods that the Chellberg family used during the Great Depression of the 1930s

Try your hand at drilling a tap hole or help the kids complete a junior ranger activity sheet so they can earn a Junior Ranger Heritage Patch. Enjoy a free taste of pure maple syrup and compare it to modern "pancake syrup," then warm up in the farm house and collect recipes featuring maple syrup. Admission for all activities is free. Pure maple syrup and sugar, and related products, will be for sale.

Maple Sugar Time takes place at the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore's Chellberg Farm on Mineral Springs Road between U.S. 20 and Highway 12 in Porter, Indiana. For more information on this or other programs at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, visit the park website at www.nps.gov/indu/planyourvisit or contact the park's information desk at 219-395-1882.



Last updated: April 10, 2015

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Contact Info

Mailing Address:

1100 North Mineral Springs Road
Porter, IN 46304

Phone:

219 395-1882
Indiana Dunes Visitor Center phone number.

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