Highland County, VA

In the rugged mountains of Highland County, Va., the ground is frozen hard in February, and there’s no sign of green on the sugar maple trees.

But for the folks who live there, it’s the opportune time to tap gallons of sweet life out of a major cash crop.

In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find someone in the county’s population of 2,500 who doesn’t understand the importance of the small window of time at the first of each year.

In the nation’s southernmost maple syrup-producing region, known as Virginia’s Switzerland, children learn at a young age what conditions are necessary to cultivate the pure, sweet sugar water that flows from the area’s maple tree forests.

“Ideally, we process everything that comes from the tree within 24 hours,” says Lorraine White, who owns and operates Sugar Tree Country Store. “That means if the tree is producing well, I don’t sleep. A lot of people don’t sleep.”

White’s husband, Jim, begins the process in January by running plastic surgical tubing between their 2,000 to 3,000 trees and inserting about 6,000 taps.

After that, it’s up to Mother Nature to decide when to turn on the faucet. For sugar water to flow from the trees, the temperature must dip below freezing at night and reach above freezing during the day. A good, average run from a tree is about three weeks.

And it’s all possible thanks to the area’s elevation. Although Highland County isn’t a major maple syrup producer like northern Vermont or New Hampshire, it gets the same freezing and thawing cycles because of the valley’s 4,000-foot elevation.

“It’s something the tree does,” White says. “If the weather stays above or below (freezing), we get a break.”

But for much of the early part of the year, “break” isn’t part of most Highland County residents’ vocabulary. They work, breathe, and sleep maple syrup.

With such a quick harvesting schedule, the rest of the year is open for syrup producers’ other jobs—many of which entail livestock and other agricultural pursuits. The Whites operate their store year-round, with Jim doubling as a teacher.

As Highland County’s only non-native maple producers, the Whites moved to Virginia’s Allegheny Highland Mountains from Blairstown, N.J., lured by the beautiful countryside. Jim had learned the art of syrup making from his father, and the couple decided to try their luck at it.

During a good year, they produce 1,000 gallons of syrup. And that’s 100 percent pure maple syrup—nothing artificial about it. (Many breakfast syrups contain little or no maple syrup.) In Highland County, you’ll pay more, but you’ll get the real thing. For every 30 to 60 gallons of sugar water boiled and filtered, only one gallon of pure maple syrup is produced.

Come March, just as the producers are finished harvesting their crops, another flurry of work begins. And Monterey, the county seat with only one stoplight, puts on a festival that rivals Mardi Gras.

“It still remains a very small community event,” says Carolyn Pohowsky, executive director of the Monterey Chamber of Commerce, which sponsors the Highland Maple Festival. “There’s nothing big or fancy to it. It’s just an event celebrating the production of maple syrup, open to anyone who wants to come visit and celebrate with us.”

The festival, which began in 1958, includes tours of the Highland Maple Museum—which traces syrup-making methods from those used by American Indians to today—and sugar camps where syrup is made the old-fashioned way, the way it was done years ago when Highland County farmers gave their syrup away because they couldn’t find a market.

Pohowsky says the festival draws crowds in excess of 50,000, who pay a dollar apiece to get in.

Still, Highland County is special for more than just syrup. Its rough mountains and sheep-producing industry add to the uniqueness of one of the least-populated counties east of the Mississippi.

“It’s been a great place to raise our family,” says White, who has five children ages 16 to 28. “They’ve seen how much work it is, but the trade-off is being able to live in such a beautiful place.”

Writer Margie Mason, a West Virginia native, now resides in San Francisco.

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