Tapping Alaska's Birch Providing value-added products, made from birch syrup, keeps this entrepreneur in business.

• Author: Jackinsky, McKibben
• Position: Cameron Birch Syrup and Confections Inc. - Brief Article

Seeing the forest and the trees is important to Marlene Cameron, the owner of Cameron Birch Syrup and Confections Inc. in Wasilla. Birch trees, that is.

She began tapping birch trees in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley in 1990, and has fine-tuned the process beyond the original birch syrup to include candies, salad dressings, popcorn, spiced nuts and marinades, including one used by Indian Valley Meats to make birch reindeer jerky.

One of the fascinating qualities of birch syrup is its versatility, according to Cameron.

"Chefs, as well as the syrup producers, are finding incredibly creative ways to use it," said Cameron, using the Millennium Hotel in Anchorage as an example.

"The hotel presents guests with Alaska gift baskets, which include at various times our specially packaged Birch-Glazed Popcorn, Spicy Birch Almonds, Birch Mini-Munches, Birch Logs[TM] and All-Alaskan Birch Reindeer Jerky. In addition, the kitchen is experimenting with birch syrup, and most recently seen on the menu was a cedar-planked salmon, glazed with birch syrup."

The sap is gathered in the spring, with one tree averaging a gallon a day and peaking at four gallons.

"When neighbors first saw us tapping trees, they wanted to help so we started buying sap," Cameron said. "Now (it seems as if) the whole Valley's collecting sap."

Sappers are paid 25 cents a gallon.

"That doesn't sound like much, but sap runs pretty heavily during the season," Cameron said. "Our best year was 1999, when our top collector made over $2,000 in 20 days. We have people that bring in a lot of sap and others that only tap a couple of trees a day .... It's fun and it's exciting and people get hooked."

Cameron initially thought that a slow cook was the secret to converting the necessary 100 gallons of sap into one gallon of syrup, but the "crude oil" result told a different story.

"I've learned it takes the hottest, fastest cook you can do," she said. Equally important is ensuring the process is done properly.

"It doesn't kill the tree if it's done correctly," Cameron said. "We are adamant about how our people tap the trees."

For that effort, Cameron Birch Syrup and Confections Inc. is certified by Ecocert International, who controls more than 20,000 producers and 2,000 food processing industries. The certification verifies conformity with European organic regulations.

"They are not only concerned with pesticides, but actually in the stewardship of the land and how trees are taken care of," said...