Naper Settlement gets visitors thinking about spring

Ron Niquette said that at this time of year, he’ll take any opportunity he gets to leave the house for a couple of hours.

“We’ve been cooped up all winter long,” the Wheaton resident said Sunday. “And while it’s still pretty chilly today, it’s nice to come out here and start thinking about spring, anyway.”

Niquette was one of nearly 700 people who attended the annual Maple Sugaring Days event at the Naper Settlement this weekend. The event included live music, dancing and demonstrations of the art of making maple syrup.

Naper Settlement spokeswoman Donna DeFalco said Maple Sugaring Days is the outdoor museum’s annual celebration of the soon-to-arrive spring season. All of the facility’s buildings were open, giving visitors a chance to get reacquainted with the museum.

Maple Sugaring Days also fits in with the Naper Settlement’s mission to show what life was like in the Naperville area of the 19th century, DeFalco said.

“Maple sugar was the only sweetener available to the early settlers of this area,” she said. “They tapped the maple trees in the area just like our demonstrators will do today.”

Niquette said his twin 9-year-old daughters enjoyed seeing how sap is extracted from a maple tree and then turned into sugar and syrup. What they liked even more, though, was the demonstration of 19th century school life in the museum’s one-room Copenhagen Schoolhouse.

“They’ve learned about this time period in school, obviously, but I think it’s different when you can actually see how people did things back then,” he said.

Naperville resident Cindy Elburtson agreed. She brought her son and nephew to the event.

“I think it definitely hits home more when you can walk inside the actual houses and buildings from the period,” she said.