Maple Festival And Maplerama

The Shires Maple Festival this year is joining with Maplerama 2009, a traditional event now in its forty-third year. Sponsored by Colgate Park, the Shires Maple Festival will be an annual, regional event. Maplerama ’09 is sponsored by the Vermont Maple Sugar Makers’ Association and is produced this year by the Bennington County Sugarmakers Association. Maplerama moves to a different Vermont county each year and was last held in Bennington in 1997.
The combined Festival, July 25 & 26 in Colgate Park in the rural West End of Bennington, Vermont  (West Road/Old Route 9) will be a two-day celebration of country life, small farms, maple producers, artisans and artists, incorporating fine food and drink, and live music. It will feature a farmers’ market, specialty exhibitors and vendors, and a restaurant area with a variety of great food from local chefs. There will be a bar with a signature Shires Maple Festival beverage, and live music both days from two, well known regional blues bands, Blues Sanctuary and Tas Cru. There will be children’s activities, entertainment and wagon rides, as well as cooking demonstrations, guidance for beginning maple sugar makers, and Maplerama’s trade show is open to visitors. There is on-site parking, a $5 admission fee (children 12 and under $3, 6 and under free), handicapped access, open spaces, good views, and, hopefully, plenty of sunshine.
Maplerama ’09 is the 43rd edition of the annual tradeshow of the members of the Vermont Maple Sugar Maker’s Association that was founded in 1893, making the VMSMA one of the oldest agricultural organizations in the country. Maple sap collection in late winter has been around for a long time having been introduced to the early settlers of New England by native Americans. Maplerama has become a maple industry get-together and tour with local maple producers sharing ideas and showing off different sugar houses and sugaring operations. This year’s tradeshow is under a 30’ x 90’ tent at Colgate Park and is open to the general public as part of the Shires Maple Festival, although the sugar house tour and certain other programs are limited to specially registered participants. On Saturday Tim Wilmot of the Proctor Maple Research Lab and University of Vermont Extension Service is giving presentations to the general public on beginning sugar making.