Threads 105: Collecting maple sap (with birch bark containers)

It will soon be that time of the year again here in Lanark County. The modern way to collect maple sap is to tap the tree with a plastic spiral attached to a hanging plastic pipeline. Suction is used to draw the sap to a large collection tank. Previously metal buckets were hung below each metal spiral on each tree. Before that containers were made of birchbark. 

The pattern in the image below was found in a children's book explaining how the settlers collected the maple sap.*

*The Maple Syrup Book by Marilyn Linton Kids Can Press Toronto 1983

It would require a very large piece of birchbark and there is no mention of how it was stitched together, but again I presume, like a birch bark canoe, they would have used spruce roots. 

I have read in the same children’s book that they would freeze the sap overnight and remove the ice to reduce the liquid. The last step would be to create a container from clay or a trough of wood sealed on the ends. Red hot stones would be heated and dropped into the sap to evaporate the remaining from the sap to get syrup. 

An online search revealed a birchbark container and cedar spiral for collecting maple sap made by Kieth Knecht.