Peter Miller first tapped birch trees in spring as a fourth-grader at Pearl Creek Elementary School in Fairbanks.
Now he's back at 25 with a degree in biology, volunteering to help teach second- and third-graders something about the science of the season: The birch trees that surround the school in the hills north of Fairbanks remain leafless, but they are far from lifeless.
Beneath the paper-like white layers that envelop each tree, water and minerals are flowing up from the roots, propelled by changes in temperature and pressure.
The students in Barb Sivin's class had notebooks to track their research for "Tapping into Spring," a program coordinated by One Tree Alaska, an educational outreach organization about matters of the forest.
The lesson began with Miller at the whiteboard suggesting things the kids should think about and observe in the woods.
"When you look at your tree, pay attention to where the sun is in the sky," he said, sketching angles of sun and trees on a whiteboard. "Is it here, where the tree gets lots of sun? Or is it over here, where there is something shading it? And also, is your tree like this on the slope where the water will flow past it? Or is it in a hole where the water stays?"
"Can you move your head?" one boy asked Miller, hoping for a better view of the whiteboard.
The children finished their notes and retrieved shoes and jackets for the field trip, which took them all of 30 yards from the front door. They broke up into small groups and ventured to their assigned trees in the thick woods.
Some used the hug method to estimate tree circumference, wrapping their arms around the trunk. Each of the designated trees had a small plastic half-inch spout cut into the tree a bit below the eye level of a third-grader. Inserted into an inch-and-a-half hole, the spouts tapped into the layer of sapwood, which is like a miniature river this time of year, carrying nutrients upward to every branch.
In the days before the leaves appear, the sound of sap dripping into five-gallon buckets provided a hint of the hidden process that precedes the annual resurgence. On Miller's signal, the kids counted the number of drips in a minute and recorded the results in their journals. Many of them counted 50 to 60 drops.
The sap has been running for about a week and while the rate varies with each tree, most produce about a gallon a day.
The children brought samples to Miller so he could test the sugar content on an electronic device. Most of the readings were in the 1 percent range. "Is that good?" a boy asked. Sure, Miller said, that's about normal.
It takes about 100 gallons of sap to produce a gallon of birch syrup. The more sugar-rich maple variety requires about 40 gallons of sap to one of syrup. That means there is far more water to boil off and evaporate with birch, adding to the processing expense.
There are successful companies that have long been collecting sap in Alaska, making birch syrup and other products using elaborate plastic tubing networks to gather the spring flow from thousands of trees. It all takes place in a compressed season of two or three weeks. "When the buds burst and the leaves come out, the sap turns milky white," said Miller, a signal that the sugar is gone.
Volunteers and staff from One Tree Alaska plan to collect at least 1,500 gallons of the stuff from several sites near Fairbanks before the leaves come out. It is being stored for research purposes in walk-in coolers at a University of Alaska Fairbanks lab. Miller adds to the collection by retrieving the buckets of sap from Pearl Creek every night.
Fresh from the tree, birch sap is clear and tastes like mineral water. There are people around the world who market birch sap as a miracle drink.
"That's really one of the best ways to consume it, more than syrup, because it's actually really good to drink and it does not require any processing. It's got other medicinal properties and nutrients," Miller said.
In a world where coconut water can command a high price there may be an untapped niche for birch water from Alaska, one of the products of spring.
Columnist Dermot Cole is a long-time resident of Fairbanks. The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com.