The first documented report of Native Americans tapping maples for sap, is from 1634, in Jesuit Relations where Father Paul Le Jeune describes members of the Micmac tribe of Ontario "[eating] the shavings or bark of a certain tree, which they call Michtan, which they split in the spring to get from it a juice, sweet as honey or as sugar".
The French loved it. By the 1670s, maple sugar in the form of small loaves was regularly sent home to France, and in 1706, 30,000 pounds of sugar were manufactured in the vicinity of Montreal. Henry Schoolcraft reported that during the 1850s, seven hundred Ottawas at Ft. Michlimackinac, Michigan, made 325,000 pounds of maple sugar in one year.
The English were somewhat slower to adopt maple sugaring in the Americas: maple sugar consumption among the English didn't become commonplace until the mid 1750s. By the 19th century, maple sugar produced in the US may have totaled 10 million pounds annually; but even by then, cane sugar and sugar beets accounted for five times that amount. Today, with the exception of some commercial farms, maple sugaring is by and large a minor farm activity, with some farmers keeping a "sugar bush", a small stand of trees that the farmers use to generate part-time revenue.
Technological Advances in Maple Tapping
The earliest recorded tapping was by making a gash in the tree, and inserting a wooden tongue into the hole which directed the sap towards a wooden bucket. Unfortunately, the repeated gashing of a tree eventually kills it after about 10 years. So, augers replaced the axe by the late 18th century, introducing less-damaging, smaller tap holes. Essentially, the technological improvements have simply mechanized the original steps of tap, boil, filter and bottle.
Sources
Whitney GG, and Upmeyer MM. 2004. Sweet trees, sour circumstances: the long search for sustainability in the North American maple products industry. Forest Ecology and Management 200(1-3):313-333. (main source)
A bibliography of Maple Sugaring sources has been collected for this project.
