The Sugar Season (36 page)

In May 2013 Bruce received an e-mail from his lawyer in Montreal that there had been a determination that the stolen syrup had not been sold at a significantly lower price in the United States, and this meant those buyers could not be held criminally responsible. Investigations were ongoing. Trials were expected to take place in 2014.

I also called David Marvin after reading the
Bloomsberg Businessweek
story. Marvin was also about to leave for the Verona conference and would be giving the keynote speech. He was planning to talk about expansion and to make the recommendation that producers make the effort to promote pure maple syrup in the cause against artificial (“that way we all win”). He intended to talk about the Federation
pricing scheme, which he thought unsustainable. He also wanted to say something about the stolen syrup and how, in his opinion, it may have affected prices on the market. He had seen bids that he thought were completely unprofitable, and now he thought he knew the basis for them. “In the past when you talked about black-market syrup, everyone was skeptical. With stolen, it’s a whole different perspective.”

David thought the discovery of the thefts could ultimately be a positive development, because government authorities would now be looking more closely.

When I called Steve Jones he agreed. Jones had been on the advisory board of the Federation when he was a vice president at Maple Grove. “This will weed those people out,” he said. “It will make anyone nervous who is wanting to play in the black market. Now, with the thefts, the full force of the Quebec authorities has come into play. And the border patrol.”

David Marvin was rankled by all the funny stories, saying, “We look like buffoons, with all the silly jokes. Cartel, sticky situation, hot syrup. I say to everyone, let me tell you about it. It’s not a joke.”

The story in
Bloomberg Businessweek
came to a climax with questions about the Federation and whether it would survive in the long term. It noted that in 2008 Quebec claimed eighty percent of world maple syrup production, but that in 2011 its share had dropped to seventy-one percent, “as U.S. states and Canadian provinces without quotas have risen to supply cheaper syrup.” The story mentioned that Senator Charles Schumer had inserted a provision in the Farm Bill to provide grants to farmers to promote the industry—New York had 280 million tappable trees, three times
more than Quebec. Simon Trepanier, acting director of the Federation, and others were watching closely. ‘“We are not idiots,’ he says, adding that in his mind climate change ultimately will tip the syrup scales in favor of his countrymen.”

He may be right. A few months later, on May 9, 2013, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere crossed the threshold of 400 parts per million throughout an entire day for the very first time. The reading was taken at the NASA observatory in Mauna Loa, Hawaii. This promised to be a dangerous threshold, with warmer temperatures, greater storms, higher sea levels, and global disruption on the not-so-distant horizon. According to reports, 400 parts per million carbon dioxide in the atmosphere had not been achieved since the Pliocene epoch, 3 million years ago, when temperatures had been three to five degrees warmer and sea levels sixty to eighty feet higher.

During the summer of 2013, when leaf cover in North American forests extracted 10 billion tons of carbon from the atmosphere, levels of carbon would fall below 400 parts per million, but that would be the final time, some reports stated.

That was, of course, unless governments took action to reduce the use of coal and fossil fuels and promote the development of clean technologies, but so far the world’s governments, especially the US government, in the country most responsible for the rise in the level of atmospheric carbon, had refused to take necessary action. It seemed highly unlikely they would, even though economic disruptions promised to be far greater later on if they didn’t.

Maybe the maple syrup industry can speak for the rest of the country, to the rest of the country, for it is a bellwether,
this earliest of agricultural traditions, the first to be taught to settlers by Native Americans, this pursuit that relies on sensitive fluctuations in temperature, as the sun advances north and the trees freeze by night.

P
OSTSCRIPT

T
HE WINTER OF
2013 was a cold winter, more like that of 2011. The crop report for maple syrup issued by the USDA in June 2013 listed production nationwide at 3.25 million gallons, 35,750,000 pounds, an increase of seventy percent over 2012. The state of Vermont produced forty percent of that crop.

Bruce Bascom said the US crop was the greatest in over seventy-five years. He thought the crop was underreported and was possibly as much as twenty-five percent greater.

The number of taps was up in every region except for Maine, which remained the same.

According to the USDA the average season in the northeastern region lasted about two weeks longer than it had in 2012.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I
FEEL LUCKY
that the kind of writing I do puts me in touch with such admirable people and worthy endeavors. I know I will miss mentioning some of the names of the people who talked to me during these three years of research, and I apologize for that. I had many conversations in passing in many places, often with people who didn’t know what I was up to. My thanks and gratitude to all of those who informed me along the way about sugarmaking, about the life of trees, about weather and climate and many facets of the business of making maple syrup.

I thank Bruce Bascom first, for his openness and willingness to talk, going all the way back to our first phone call about the Asian longhorned beetle, which didn’t play a large role in this book but did open up the doorway to a conversation with Bruce about the maple syrup business. Bruce spent hundreds of hours with me, traveling and talking at the sugarhouse and in formal interviews. He also sent me to and advised me to talk with all the right people, under the belief that there is much more to the maple syrup industry than people realize.

Thank you also to Kevin Bascom for his explanations of the processes and for time in the woods. Thank you to David
Bascom for letting me ride along and for answering my questions.

I owe Peter and Deb Rhoades a special thank you for the many times you hosted us and talked with us about making syrup, for the time spent at your remarkable sugarhouse, and for those times spent in the woods, which was my secret reason for writing this book.

Thank you to David Marvin for the many walks in the woods and times at the sugarhouse and at the plant in Morrisville and for informing me and answering my many questions in person and by e-mail and phone. You are a dedicated and passionate spokesman for the cause of all things maple.

A special thanks to Alvin Clark, who became my friend in the course of this research, beginning with our trip to the opening of the “Seasons of Change” exhibit and during the many other things we did together, including, especially, times at your sugarhouse.

My thanks also to Dr. Timothy Perkins, director of the Proctor Maple Center, with whom I had several conversations, who hosted me at the Proctor Center, who sent documents, and who answered my many questions, and from whom I also learned a great deal via his public talks to sugarmakers. Though he doesn’t appear directly in these pages, his contributions inform this book.

Thank you also to Mel Tyree for hosting me and for his conversations about the sap hydraulics and biomechanics of the maple tree.

I want to thank another person who does not appear as directly in these pages as he might have but who also thoroughly informs this book: Arnold Coombs, the sales manager
at Bascom Maple Farms and someone who has spent a lifetime in the maple business. Thank you to Arnold for our many conversations.

A thank you to Robert Poirier for hosting me in Quebec and for our many talks and for taking me out into the woods—for conveying your passion for what you do. If certain wishes come true, then you will be able to read this book in your own language some day.

The following people were generous in offering information, advice, their stories and their time, or even just a few helpful words: Liz Bascom, Brad Bascom, Greg Bascom, Judy Snow, Nancy Fowler, Sam Bascom, David Bascom, Crystal Bascom, Lorna Bascom, Brooke Adams, Steve Anderson, Mike Bennett, Pascale Boivin, Henry Brennaman, Rhota Brennaman, Real Bureau, Guy Bolduc, Joseph Brent, Jeremy Bushway, Martha Carlson, Bill Clark, David Clark, Fraser Cooper-Ellis, Dan Crocker, Doug Edwards, Anton Elbers, Michael Farmer, Michael Farrell, Brian Tedrow, Cindy Finck, Nancy Fortin, Fernand Gagne, Maurice Gagne, Gary Gaudette, Erwin Gingerich, Serge Gauvin, Anne-Marie Granger-Godbout, Gordon Gowan, Alexandre Gregoire, Bruno Guay, J. Mark Harran, Kevin Harrison, Kathy Harrison, Clarisse Hart, Mark Hastings, Gwen Hinman, George Hodskins, Joseph James, Steve Jones, Haven King, Daniel Lalanne, Vital Lariviere, Nick Lemieux, Doris LeVasseur, Tari Lyndaker, Mario Maheaux, Michel Maheaux, Ira Marvin, Gary Merrill, Lorraine Merrill, Tim Merton, Greg Minard, Mark Mitchell, Claude Morrissette, Suzanne Nadeau, Fernand Nadeau, Frederic Nadeau, Takashi Oshio, Jean-Claude Pare, Michael Parker, Robyn Pearl, Gerald Pease, Mim Pendleton, George Putnam, Marty Rabtoy, Pat Richards, Doug Rose, Carole
Rouleau, Kevin Ruane, Joe Russo, Dave St. Aubin, Ben Shepard, Richard Sipitowsky, Randy Sprague, Gardner Stetson, Steve Taylor, Peter Thomson, Jeremy Thompson, Dan Weed, Jennifer Weimer, Marty Wendel, Steve Wilbur, Tim Wilmot, Michelle York, and Tom Zaffis.

Thank you to Professor Barry Rock of the University of New Hampshire for weighing in on some of the issues of climate change discussed in this book and for your longstanding work on this issue.

I want to thank Richard Polonsky for his role in creating “Seasons of Change” and for including Alvin Clark, for inviting me to attend, for answering my questions, and for permission to quote from his letter.

My thanks to Lorraine Merrill, commissioner of agriculture in New Hampshire, for her thoughts on the maple sugaring industry.

Thank you to Lawrence Elworth, agricultural counselor to the administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency, for conversation and for articles, and also to Mike Moats for referring me to him.

Thanks to Alexis Hauk for alerting me in 2009 to the situation of the Asian longhorned beetle.

Thank you to Eric Bascom Jr. for providing his book,
Up Where the House Burned Down,
which gave me an understanding of the history of the Bascom family.

Thank you to Richard Todd for his advice and encouragement in the planning and structure of this book, as it made such a difference.

Thank you to my colleagues and students at Emerson College for their support and encouragement, and to Lee Pelton for the granting of time to work on this book.

Thank you to my students at Universidad Nacional de Colombia Sede Bogotá, for their support and encouragement; thank you also to Diana Rojas, codirector of the Centro de Estudios de Estadounidenses de Colombia. Additionally, I owe a debt of gratitude to the Fulbright Foundation for the award of a fellowship to teach in Colombia, which also allowed me time to write drafts of this book.

Many thanks to my agent, Regina Ryan, for getting behind this project and supporting it so wholeheartedly and for her guidance and advice.

A special note of thanks to Lissa Warren, my editor and more at Da Capo Press, for your interest, energy, enthusiasm, guidance, and support.

Importantly, thank you and thank you to Isha Contway and Liz Whynott, to you and yours. And, as always, my gratitude forever to Kathy Olsen, who was there and into this from the very first day, who listened to it all over and over, fell in love with the sugarhouses just like I did, read every draft, walked with me and supported this effort every step of the way, while together and apart.