Caribou Cream's annual Maple Fall Festival took place last weekend in Lutsen. All photos by Tryg Solberg

By Tryg Solberg - Boreal Community Media - September 22, 2025

Caribou Cream hosted its annual Maple Fall Festival this past weekend off the Caribou Trail in Lutsen. Amid a dreary and windy Friday, visitors passed through their storefront and tents that were set up outside. 

Herb Willis is the owner of Caribou Cream. His family comes up from southern Minnesota to help out with the festival every fall. His sisters were running the storefront on Friday afternoon. They expected more traffic to come through, but mentioned a steady stream of people despite the weather. After typically hosting the event only on Saturday in late September, they wanted to try the multi-day approach to spread the crowd that typically filled the cozy storefront on the Saturday event. 

Willis taps about 4,500 maple trees on his property and produces between 600 and 1,800 gallons of maple syrup. Plastic sap lines run through the woods into his storage containers, where he processes about 5,000 gallons of tree sap in a batch. With a ratio of 40 gallons of tree sap to finished syrup, he has to process tens of thousands of gallons through his reverse osmosis machine and wood-fired evaporator. 

Earlier this year, Caribou Cream won the Minnesota Maple Syrup Producers Association's Best of Show award from the Minnesota State Fair, and its Golden Maple Syrup took first place. 

The Maple Fall Festival is an interactive event and a showcase of their products. Rock painting and maple cotton candy draw in the young crowd. They prepare to be well-stocked for their weekend with all things maple in stock. Their maple cotton candy machine comes out, and Willis’ family members greet guests, sell merchandise, and even operate a live wood crafting demo. 

Caribou Cream is located 2.5 miles up the Caribou Trail in Lutsen and offers its self-service storefront throughout the year.