CAMDEN — The Camden-Rockport Historical Society celebrated Maine Maple Sunday, March 22, at its Cramer Museum, located on Route 1 at the Camden and Rockport town line. There were maple syrup making demonstrations in the 1820s sugarhouse on the museum grounds, maple treats and ice cream with maple syrup, among the specialties.

Chuck wagon beans were cooked over an open fire, while the standing room-only-crowd-at-times, enjoyed a traditional shingle-making demonstration using a froe and wooden maul.

The Maine Maple Producers Association offers these bits of information on maple syrup:

• In a good season, a single large tree can produce as much as 60 gallons of sap without suffering any injury.
• That amount of sap will boil down to one and a half gallons of syrup.
• The average maple tree isn't tapped until it is almost 40 years old.
• Tapping younger trees can often harm them.

Wendy Harvey spent her afternoon Sunday boiling down sap into maple syrup at the Cramer Museum.

"We actually just started about 20 minutes ago," she said. "So we have about 35 gallons to boil down here. I gathered this in the last three weeks because it hasn't run very well. I can boil 10 gallons of sap off in an hour and that will make about a quart of syrup."

Wendy was sporting a new pan to boil her sap in and she said it works a lot faster.

"Before I was using a lobster pot to boil the sap in and this new pan works a lot, lot better and faster," she said. "It's just a wood fire and I try to keep a constant [temperature] with the fire. Obviously if the heat is there it will boil faster, but I don't want it to boil over so we watch it."

The shack fills with steam, not smoke.

"I've been making syrup for probably seven years," she said. "It's kind of like a sauna in here. I'm going to be in the sauna until four o'clock making syrup."

Brenda Barrett, president of the Camden Rockport Historical Society, said it always pleases her when they can do something that draws people in to experience the unique things they have to offer at the museum.

Usually held outside, the shingle making demonstration was moved inside the museum.

"Heather wanted it moved inside, so that when you walked into the museum it was what you saw right away. It's a visual and we wanted as many people as possible to make their own shingle. A lot of people are really having a lot of fun with that," said Barrett.

The sap for the syrup did not come from the Conway House property.

"Wendy Harvey brought all the sap from their Barnstown Road address," Barrett said. "We've upgraded the shack this year with new pipes and pans for boiling, so it would be a lot safer."

The Conway House and Cramer Museum are currently making plans to add a community wood-fired oven onsite.

"It's currently in the discussion phase," she said. "We want to make sure we comply with all the rules and regulations for doing it. We're still exploring that and ways to make money for it. We started a GoFundMe page to try and raise some of the money. It's going to cost us about $8,000."

Barrett said the oven will be a more colonial brick design, so it fits in with the museum's time period. And it will be larger than a standard brick oven. She said that it should hold around 12 pizzas at a time.

Maine Maple Sunday is the first official event for the museum for 2016. The museum will hold a fiber fair, coming up in June, which will also see the start of the museum's bean hole suppers that are held the second Saturday of every month through September.