(WTWO/WAWV)– Dozens of people made their way to Prairie Creek Park on Saturday for the return of a Vigo County parks tradition.
The parks department hosted a pancake breakfast event, accompanied with a tour of the maple syrup-making process that takes place at Prairie Creek. Sean Sluyter, the natural resources programmer for Vigo County, said the event is a continuation of the pancake breakfast that used to be hosted at Fowler Park for decades.
“We used to have an event in Fowler Park, but we canceled that several years ago for various reasons,” he said. “We decided to bring it back, but bring it here to Prairie Creek and focus on the educational portion.”
Sluyter said there had been a lot of interest in bringing the event back, and the department thought it would be a good way to showcase the park and the process of creating maple syrup, which generates a lot of interest, according to Sluyter.
“We’re getting them out, we’re showing them how we draw sap from the trees, what different kinds of trees we tap, the different types of maples,” he said. “We also take them through the boiling process and how we get the syrup from sap.”
Saturday’s event was sold out, and consisted of several smaller groups going on tours throughout the morning, instead of one big one. Sluyter said they wanted to start off slow, and they hope to expand in the future.
“We kept it small this year as a trial run, just so we could work some bugs out and see how it’s going. It’s going pretty well so far, we’re hoping to expand next year,” Sluyter said. “It’s awesome to get people out here, and they’re excited to get a tour of the syrup operation but also the breakfast.”
