As Alaska warms, sap runs are getting earlier and less predictable, said Dulce Ben-East, an owner of the longest running birch syrup producer in the state. “I really think of it as climate chaos,” she said. “It seems to get more chaotic every year.”
That can leave deep snow packs on the ground. Snow reflects sunlight and keeps air temperatures cold longer in the spring. But once snow melts, the darker soil warms up fast, making for a short, intense breakup.
When it starts running, sap is collected in 2,500-gallon tanks. Then it’s pumped through a reverse osmosis machine, which concentrates the sugars about 10 times. Finally, it’s run through an evaporator which leaves just sweet sugars, turning what started as 100 gallons of sap into one gallon of syrup. “In a warm year, you really lose sugar fast,” she said. “Instead of having sap that’s 1.1% sugar, which is great, it’ll start dropping two .9% or .
There are other climate-induced changes that have Ben-East worried. Hotter summers mean greater chances of wildfires, which could wipe out the trees that the business relies on. A few years ago, the 2019 Deshka Landing fire was just a few miles from the company’s property. Beetle-infested spruce trees falling on the sap collecting tubing has cost Kahiltna Birchworks weeks of labor. Scientists believe spruce beetle infestations could become more common as the climate changes. “It’s a total catastrophe,” Michael East, a co-owner of Kahiltna Birchworks said of the spruce beetles.
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