Sigewigus
Sismo'qonapu

Since time immemorial, Indigenous Peoples of eastern Canada and the northeastern United States, including the Mi'gmaq, have harvested sap from maple trees to turn it into syrup. This sap, or seismo'qonapu, carries 46 nutrients essential to the life, growth, and protection of the tree from which it is taken, and the Mi'gmaq were already well aware of its high energy and nutritional value.

Among the Mi'gmaq of Gespe'gewa'gi, it is by observing the squirrels crunching the branches of the snawei (sugar maple) that the idea of tasting the sap was born. Under a "V" cut, a small piece of bone or concave wood was inserted into wegilat (bark) to drain seismo'qonapu in a basket of bark placed at the foot of the tree. For evaporation, large bark baskets full of seismo'qonapu were placed inside holes in the ground, and hot stones were plunged into them so that the liquid would heat up and thicken.

Sigewigus Tepgunset, or the spring moon, represented the beginning of the annual cycle of the Mi'gmaq way of life, during which sugar was produced for the coming year. Even today, we honor Sigewigus Tepgunset in our customs and traditions.