IT’S EARLY SPRING, when the days warm up a bit after the long winter but the nights are still cold. This is the time of year when the maple sap rises through the trunks to fill new buds and leaves. It’s also the time of year they give up some of their sap to create one of nature’s delicacies, maple syrup. For one Door County man, making maple syrup has been part of his life for 83 years.
“I took over the maple syrup business from my grandfather and my dad at the age of 12,” Roland Jorns, owner of Jorns’ Sugar Bush near Egg Harbor recalled. That was 83 years ago, and Roland has been tapping maple trees and turning the sap into sweet maple syrup ever since. “Grandfather was too old to keep running it and my father got hurt,” Roland recalled. “My dad wasn’t satisfied with the job the neighbors were doing with it so he said ‘Do you think you can handle it?’ I said sure and I did the best I could. That was during the Great Depression and I wanted to make some money because I had to buy my own clothes. So I grew up the hard way but it toughened me up. We had to cut back on the number of trees because I was going to school and I’ve been doing it ever since.” Roland would hire classmates from school to help him and then built a camp in the woods during the spring so he could stay close to his trees.
In 1952, Roland married his wife, Donna, who worked side by side with Roland and managed the family store. “She was very very good at that,” Roland recalled. “She liked people and they liked her.” She passed away in 2021. The couple raised three children; sons Stuart,
Steve and his daughter, Terry. Now, Roland’s children help out when they can, especially in the store.
Over the years the sugar bush grew to nearly 200 acres of trees. Roland has had to cut back but still taps trees on 60 to 70 acres. “I’m no spring chicken anymore,” he quipped. “Some years you have quite a bit of snow in the woods and it gets too hard to get around.” Just as he did starting out, Roland hires high school kids to help with tapping. “They want to earn a buck or two and take their girlfriends out,” Roland said. “And they can get around much better. They’re quicker and they enjoy it, and it keeps them out of mischief which is probably the best reward for them,” he said with a chuckle. “When they get done at night, they ain’t going to be running no place but right straight to bed because they’re tired. It makes them stronger, it makes them honest.”
The sap is collected and poured into a wood-fired evaporator which is 16 feet long and four feet wide. The tank has flues in it to multiply the heating surface in the tank and boils off the water faster as it takes more than 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup.
The finished product is then put into 50 gallon barrels and Roland said he usually produces 45-50 barrels annually.
While Roland is 95 he’s not hanging it up, so a stop at Jorns’ Maple Syrup will give one a taste of Door County history along with a topping for your pancake.
- Jorns’ Sugar Bush is located at 4518 CTH T near Egg Harbor or call (920)360-0679.
