MAY 2009 - Pickens Maple Syrup Festival

Pickens is, by anyone's account, a very small town. But each year, the Maple Syrup Festival draws people from around West Virginia and neighboring states. This year's festival was the 25th celebration of the making of maple syrup in this former logging town.

Pickens is located in a small valley surrounded by hardwood forests, between Holly River State Park and Kumbrabow State Forest. It's a pretty drive, no matter how you get there, mainly either by following State Route 119 south from Buckhannon or SR 250/219 south from Elkins. Pickens is in a small valley near the Right Fork of the Buckhannon River. Since the gorgeous maple hardwood is our state tree, it's fitting that we have a Maple Syrup Festival in West Virginia.

Maple syrup wasn't always a delicate pancake topping. To early settlers, who learned about the sweet stuff from the Native American Indians, it was a source of inexpensive sugar. When the land we now know as West Virginia was being settled, people pretty much made everything themselves. They bartered or bought what they couldn't make, but kept that to a minimum.

Sugar was very expensive in those days; so the natural maple sweetener was a great substitute. The Native Americans collected the sap in hollowed-out logs and put hot rocks in with the sap to evaporate the water. The settlers quickly improved upon that technique and, today, maple syrup is mass-produced with collections from several trees running into tubing which is linked to large containers. Even with some modern improvements, it's very labor intensive and it takes between 40 and 50 gallons of sap to make just one gallon of syrup.

My friend John Simons has been making maple syrup with his brother-in-law, Bob Withers, for several years at Bob's hunting camp south of Rock Cave. John, Bob, and Bob's brother Fred produce the sweet stuff just for family and friends. John said that this year they tapped about seventy trees, but since it takes so many gallons of sap to produce a small amount of syrup, they don't end up with enough to sell. If the trees are close enough together, they will use plastic tubing to collect the syrup from several trees at once, filling a 35 gallon container on their ATV. Over the years, they've improved their process and now use a long, narrow concrete fireplace with a metal sheet on top and stainless steel pans to evaporate the water from the sap over a hardwood fire; then finishing it using a propane stove at the hunting camp.

The Maple Syrup Festival activities included a pancake feed at the American Legion Hall - buckwheat or flour pancakes, sausage patty and coffee served with warm maple syrup - but get there early! There was a long, long line waiting to get into the building so I skipped it but those who were patient enough came out of the building smiling and making me think I had made a mistake by not waiting. The largest maple syrup producer in the area is Richter's Maplehouse. Richter's products were for sale at the festival, but they are also available at www.treewater.com. Richter's offers a twenty minute tour from March through October, Monday through Saturday.

As interesting as the maple syrup process is to me, I was also drawn to Pickens itself. The railroad passenger service to Pickens stopped many years ago its days as a logging town are over, but the people of Pickens have done a wonderful job keeping their history alive. They transformed the Pickens Depot, the former railway station, into an Art and Photo Show center for the festival, with newspaper clippings and photographs of the town's history. A potbellied stove sits in the center of the ticket office, framed by antique farm implements on the wall behind it. During the Maple Syrup Festival, crafts are for sale in what appears to have once been the railway station waiting room. A history of Pickens first offered in 1971, "Haven in the Hardwood," is still on sale at Hull's Store and available during the festival. Don't miss a chance to see the Opera House. The raised seats, giving everyone a good view, are fairly new, but the hardwood floors and stage look like they date to the 1893 opening. There are playbills of times past on the wall near the front door and other memorabilia is in display cases. At one time, the Helvetia Brass Band and the Pickens Cornet Band entertained residents. Later, movies were shown in the Opera House, with one of the display cases honoring a former ticket seller.

All in all, Pickens is definitely worth a visit. It's a tribute to this small town that they have worked so diligently to preserve their heritage and to share their memories with all of us.