WELCOME TO An Entertainment Site for Scottish Country Dancers - Enjoy the curated selection of theme-related dances for celebrations and holidays, or find a dance associated with a special calendar day, or EVEN your own birthday!
Indian Sugar Camp, 1853, Captain Seth Eastman
Maple Syrup Day
Dec 17
Other Scottish Country Dances for this Day
Today's Musings, History & Folklore
"There is in some parts of New England, a kind of tree whose juice that weeps out of its incision, if it is permitted to exhale away the superfluous moisture, doth congeal into a sweet and saccharin substance."
~ Robert Boyle, 1663
How sweet! This sugary titled dance won an award for "best mixer dance" at the Dance Nova Scotia Challenge and is an easy way to break the ice at a holiday ceilidh! Maple syrup, a gift from the indigenous peoples of North America, has been cherished for centuries for its unique and distinctive flavour and aroma. Collected from the watery sugary sap of the sugar maples, maple syrup has a rich array of polyphenols and volatile organic compounds, including maple furanone, strawberry furanone, and maltol (known for its cotton candy aroma). The process of boiling the sap yields another delicious component, "quebecol," named for the Canadian province who is the biggest producer of maple syrup in the world (with Vermont in the United States as a close second)! Holiday baking is the perfect time to enjoy the year’s maple syrup and sugar harvest, especially in seasonal favorites like Sugar Maple Pie, a perfect bring-along item for any holiday food-themed dances. Recipe included with the dance description! Yum! 🥞 🍁 🥧 🍁 🧇
Maple Sugar Jig
Maple syrup comes from the sap of sugar maple, red maple, or black maple trees (although it can also be made from other maple species as well).
In cold climates, these trees store starch in their trunks and roots before the winter; the starch is then converted to sugar that rises in the sap in the spring. Maple trees can be tapped by boring holes into their trunks and collecting the exuded sap. The sap is processed by heating to evaporate much of the water, leaving the concentrated syrup. Maple syrup can be boiled further to produce maple cream, maple sugar, and maple candy. Usually a maple tree must be at least 30 years old and 12 inches in diameter before it is tapped. It takes 30-50 gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup, and one gallon of maple syrup to produce eight pounds of maple candy or sugar.
Indigenous peoples living in the northeastern part of North America were the first groups known to have produced maple syrup and maple sugar. According to aboriginal oral traditions, as well as archaeological evidence, maple tree sap was being processed into syrup long before Europeans arrived in the region. Aboriginal tribes developed rituals around sugar-making, celebrating the Sugar Moon (the first full moon of spring) with a Maple Dance.
For more on the new maple syrup grading system (especially for connoisseurs who formerly fancied Grade B), click here. And for a recipe for a signature dish from Quebec, Canada, click the Maple Sugar pie!
Click the dance cribs or description below to link to a printable version of the dance!
