Maple Syrup Festival on tap in Cedar Rapids

CEDAR RAPIDS — Watch live syrup-making demonstrations, learn about maple syruping through the ages, listen to live music and enjoy a pancake and sausage breakfast at the 34th annual Maple Syrup Festival March 18-19 at Indian Creek Nature Center in Cedar Rapids.

The festival runs each day from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the nature center's new 'Amazing Space' campus, 5300 Otis Road SE.

This year's festival also features educational stations, a raptor show featuring live birds of prey and a look at the action inside the Maple Sugar House.

Lindsey Flannery, business development coordinator at the nature center, said organizers are expected more than 2,000 people to attend this year's festival. She said about 2,100 attended last year's event.

'We want people to come and enjoy our pancakes and sausage and real maple syrup, but we also want them to experience all we have to offer as a nature center so they come back with their families,' said Flannery, drawing particular attention to the fact that the nature center's 4 miles of trails are to be open during the festival. That includes a half-mile trek between the nature center headquarters and the Maple Syrup House, where sap is boiled into syrup.

'You can take a shuttle back and forth or you can hike the trail,' she said.

Saturday's music lineup features jazz, funk and fusion by Peter Hart and friends from 8 to 10 a.m. and the bluegrass of the Riverbottom Ramblers from 10:15 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

On Sunday, Denny Redmond and friends perform jazz from 8 to 10 a.m. and acoustic guitarist Scott Engledow takes the stage from 10:15 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Joan Schnabel, a local raptor educator, presents her birds of prey program from 10 a.m. to noon each day.

Tickets are available online through March 17 at indiancreeknaturecenter.org and also are to be sold at the door. Cost for adults is $8 in advance or $10 at the door. Cost for children ages 4-12 is $4 in advance or $5 at the door. Children age 3 and younger are admitted for free.

Flannery encourages those planning to attend to purchase tickets in advance so they can avoid the lines at the door.

Indian Creek Nature Center officials annually install about 150 taps into 75 sugar maple trees near where Indian Creek flows into the Cedar River. This year, due to warm winter weather, the center was able to collect sap early. Officials said 24 gallons of syrup was made with sap collected the week of Feb. 12-18 alone.

'We usually start tapping trees around Valentine's Day and don't get a good sap run until March, so the fact that we collected an extremely high volume of sap the week of Feb. 12-18 is unusual,' said Jean Wiedenheft, land stewardship director at the nature center. 'We hope the weather remains favorable and the sap will continue to flow.'

Flannery said former nature center director Rich Patterson cooked up the idea for the Maple Syrup Festival, with the first event taking place in 1984. Since that time, it's become a 'beloved community tradition,' she said.

'The longevity speaks to the novelty of participating and tapping trees and making syrup,' Flannery said, adding nature center officials have seen more and more people get into making syrup themselves over the years.

'The Native Americans did it, the pioneers did it,' she said. 'We have always encouraged others to make syrup and they've done that.'

MORE MAPLE SYRUP FUN

For those looking to tap into even more syrupy fun, Indian Creek Nature Center also is offering four more 'It's Maple Syrupin' Time' programs this month.

The 90-minute program allows guests to use the sugar maker's tools to tap a tree, visit the Maple Sugar House to learn how sap becomes syrup and enjoy a taste of the center's real maple syrup on ice cream.

The event is offered from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and 1 to 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 11, and again on Saturday, March 25.

Those attending are asked to meet at the nature center's barn at 6665 Otis Road SE. Cost is $4 per person.