The North American Indians were the first to discover "sinzibuckwud", the Algonquin (a North American Indian tribe) word for maple syrup, meaning literally "drawn from wood". They would use their tomahawks to make V shaped incisions in the trees, then insert reeds or concave pieces of bark to run the sap into buckets made from birch bark. Because no proper equipment was available, the sap was slightly concentrated either by throwing hot stones in the bucket, or by leaving it overnight and tossing the layer of ice out which had formed on the top.
	It was drunk as a sweet drink or used in cooking. This is possibly where maple-cured bacon came from.
	The first white settlers and fur traders introduced wooden buckets to the process, as well as iron and copper kettles. Later they would bore holes in the trees and hang their buckets on home-made spouts.   Maple sugar production was especially important because the other types of sugar were hard to find and expensive. It was as common on the table as salt is today. In fact, during the American Revolution, Benjamin Franklin had plans to have his future country self-sufficient on sugar by using maple sugar.