Kahiltna Birchworks

Alaska birch syrup is one of the rarest gourmet food products in the world, and one of the most difficult to produce. (see About Birch Syrup). Dulce Ben-East, Michael East, and partner, Sally Freund have operated the Alaskan "sugarbush", producing pure birch syrup, at the East Homestead - 35 miles off the Alaska road system at Quiet Lake - since 1990.

Dulce and Michael have aptly named their birch syrup "Kahiltna Gold". "Kahiltna" is an Athabascan word meaning "from the source". The Source refers to Denali,also an Athabascan word, meaning "the great one". The birch trees from which the Easts draw sap for their birch syrup obtain their water from this source. This source, so far from human habitation, is pure and clean - as is the air, making Kahiltna Gold pure birch syrup free of pesticides, herbicides, and other pollutants.

Access to the East homestead is by float or ski plane, depending on the season or, in winter, overland 32 miles by snowmachine - through vast forests of birch and spruce and across frozen swamps, lakes, and rivers. The East family hauls all their supplies, equipment, materials, food, fuel and helpers for the birch syrup harvest to the homestead by one of these methods.

Quiet Lake, where the Easts live part-time and produce their birch syrup, is a small lake nestled in the center of Alaska’s Susitna Valley, the vast river valley extending south of the Alaska Range. It lies just a half mile from the Kahiltna River that flows from the Kahiltna Glacier, 40 miles to the north, on the south flank of Denali. Denali, commonly referred to as Mt. Mckinley, is North America's highest peak. Many climbers begin and end their ascent of Denali at base camp on the Kahiltna glacier. The Kahiltna River is traditionally a gold mining area; gold miners have staked claims along this river for decades hoping to make their fortune. The Easts birch syrup is their "Kahiltna Gold".

Kahiltna Birchworks has grown over its 18 year existence. While originally tapping 200 trees, to produce their first "crop" of birch syrup in 1990, the Easts tapped 3300 trees this spring.

Read about This Year's Harvest
In 1999 Dulce, Michael, and Sally, needing more space for a burgeoning business, built a small commercial Kitchen near Palmer, Alaska where they bottle the birch syrup and create their wonderful confections, toppings, and other delicious products using their pure birch syrup as an ingredient.

The Easts recently introduced their "Alaska Wild Harvest" product line of "EXTREME" wild berry, low sugar jams. The jams are delicous and have been a hit. Look for larger jars in 2007 - jam-lovers just want more! The birch-orange mustard, also a new product, has proved to be a winner among mustard-lovers, and the birched-honey is topping the charts - the Easts are currently scouring the countryside for honey so they can continue to offer birched-honey through 2007. All of these products are now available at the website store.

The Easts follow the birch syrup best practices and production standards of the Alaska Birch Syrupmakers' Association, founded in 1993. Dulce has been president of ABSA for the past three years.

Dulce writes:

"Determined to maintain our lifestyle, we challenge ourselves to make a living at our home by using the abundant resources at hand - birch trees - in a sustainable manner. Though we now spend summer and fall at our Palmer, Alaska kitchen and "roadhouse" as we like to call it, the rest of the year we conduct most of our business at home, home school our daughters Hannah and Kaila, and deal with the logistics of running a business in the bush on a daily basis. Due to the wonders of our solar panels and communications technology we have rural-radio telephone, fax machine, and, although mighty slow, an online computer.

"Both our lifestyle and our business depend greatly on Nature - a force much greater than ourselves. Weather determines the length and general success of our syrup season, our access to our home, method and expense of hauling necessary supplies, our ability to get to the post office or to town when necessary. Because of this, we are very much in tune with the natural rhythms of the seasons and keep a detailed log of events such as freeze-up, ice thickness on the lake, first snow, "break-up" (the spring thaw when the lake is no longer land-able and the rivers no longer cross-able), first sap in the birches, and appearance of the leaves, signaling the end of the syrup season. "So, we have a great respect for and deference to Nature, and often must bend to her will. Though this sometimes causes a feeling of powerlessness, it is at the same time spiritually empowering to feel the strength of Nature so intensely, and in feeling fully connected to it, so very much a part of that rhythm.

I think many of our problems and frustrations as human beings result from our artificial separation from Nature in modern life. Though our life is at times more difficult than it would be if we were connected to Alaska's road system, the inconveniences are more than compensated when we return to the woods in winter after our time in town. We are awed at the depth of the silence, the milkyway in all its splendor, the shimmering aurora, and the light of the full moon across the snow. Though we sometimes have cause to wonder, this is the time that our hard work pays off and we know it is worth it.

email us at admin@alaskabirchsyrup.com or
call us at 1-800-380-7457

Link to our story from NPR Radio: All Things Considered - Alaska Sap Suckers