Mid-February through March can be an exciting time across southeast Michigan. With spring being around the corner, people are looking to get out once again and connect with nature. One place to do that is the sugarbush. 

The sugarbush is a grove of sugar maples, and the name for an Indigenous practice of harvesting and cooking down sap to make syrup.

For years Indigenous people have used sugarbush as an opportunity gather, practice fellowship, and give back to the land by cleaning the area, removing debris and evasive plants. They utilize the trees for their sap and return the land to the state in which they found it.

A conversation with Rosebud Schneider, a member of the Anishinaabe people, shed light on the community aspect around sugarbush. 

“We have a responsibility to protect this land, protect each other. This is one way to do that,” said Schneider. She added that people coming together for sugarbush gives the older generations a chance to teach the younger generations what they know.

Black to the Land echoes Indigenous ethos

Organizations such as Black to The Land and Friends of Rouge Park keep the spirit of this practice going. Antonio Cosome, Black to The Land co-founder, and lead volunteer and organizer Isra Daraiseh, take volunteers through the process of sap collection, boiling and giving back to the land.

Utilizing the teachings of Indigenous elders, they’ve cultivated a sense of community by bringing people out and sharing the practice with them.

Each year they gather to tap maple trees, collect sap, and boil the sap down to produce maple sugar, maple vinegar, and, of course, syrup. Even the runoff during the boil itself gets reused to top deserts such as ice cream. Though it’s labor intensive, there’s a sense of transformation or enlightenment that comes from the practice.  

And, the products from the boil-down give meetings a sweet touch in the months to come.

The process of making maple syrup is shown in photos of Black to the Land Coalition’s boil down. Click photos to enlarge. Credit: Isaiah Lopez, WDET

After warnings about “exploding trees” went viral this winter, a local arborist says he did not hear any reports of it occurring.

“I have not heard or seen of any explosions happening in the woods,” arborist Luke Brunner says. He works with the Davey Tree Company.

“I think there was a lot of concern behind it….I had multiple phone calls asking about it,” Brunner continues.

However, he says if anyone did hear unusual sounds coming from a nearby tree trunk, it was likely frost cracking, a common occurrence during winter. Frost cracking occurs when sunlight warms the interior of a tree during the day, and temperatures then drop sharply at night, leading to water inside the trunk freezing and expanding, resulting in a popping sound.

Brunner says ice and snow pose a greater risk to trees. Heavy accumulation can weigh down branches, especially those with dead wood or structural weaknesses, increasing the likelihood of limbs breaking and falling.

New research shows the presence of trees where people live may significantly impact human heart health.

The results find that those living in greener neighborhoods have lower risks of heart attacks, strokes, and other cardiovascular diseases.

Peter James is a lead researcher of the study at the University of California – Davis.

Using over 350 million Google Street View images analyzed with deep learning, James’s team identified street-level vegetation and linked it to long-term health data.

However, areas with more grass were linked to higher cardiovascular risk.

James says trees help by cooling neighborhoods, filtering air, reducing noise, and promoting activity and social interaction. “We’ve evolved as human beings to be in nature….this is our natural setting, not staring at a computer screen….that’s where we thrive… out in trees and nature,” James says. 

This story is a part of WDET’s ongoing series, the Detroit Tree Canopy Project.