8 Nanaimo News Bulletin Saturday, February 14, 2009

www.nanaimobulletin.com

Maple sugar a key aspect of annual Festival

Cold nights and warm mornings
welcome the flow of sap during maple
sugar season. Before the tasty syrup
can be used on pancakes, in baking or
as toffee on snow, though, the sweet
sap must be boiled for hours.

Early settlers learned the process
from the First Nations people. Today,
it has evolved into an impressive
business, with more than 9,000 maple
sugar producers in Quebec and more
than 2,000 in the rest of Canada. The
Town of Plessiville, in the heart of
Quebec’s maple region, is known as
the ‘World Maple Capital’.

The history of maple sugar mak-
ing goes back to the 17th and 18th
centuries. In the spring time, colo-
nists would move into the woods and
install maple sugar shacks. A sugar
shack was a colonist’s base of opera-
tions for syrup production. Tapping a tree required
boring a hole, inserting a spout and collecting the
sap as it poured into buckets. Creating syrup was a
time consuming process, involving constant boiling in
metal pots. It was a common practice because sugar
was hard to find and expensive to import. As technol-

ogy evolved, sap collection became streamlined. Today,
producers tap multiple maple trees, and attach plas-
tic tubing that runs to a sugar camp where the sap is
boiled. Modern methods make the process easier, but
it still takes a lot of sap to make a small amount of
syrup:150 litres of sap eventually boils down to only

3.7 litres of syrup! Fortunately, tap-
ping trees doesnit prevent them from
growing.

After their hard work, early settlers
would invite neighbours and friends
to a ‘sugaring off’ party to celebrate
the harvest and enjoy maple syrup
flavoured foods.

The tradition continues today
through maple sugar festivals held
throughout Canada and the United
States. As it was in the early days,
nothing is added to the sap to pro-
duce the sweet syrup products peo-
ple enjoy. Syrup comes in multiple
grades, depending on the types of
trees and the region where sap origi-
nates from. Favourite syrupy treats
include maple toffee and maple but-
ter. Maple toffee is pure maple syrup
poured over snow and rolled onto
spoons or wooden sticks. Maple butter is syrup that
is reheated, cooled and stirred to create a buttery
spread.

Once again this year, festival goers can enjoy tra-
ditional sugaring off party treats in the maple sugar
shack, including sugar pies and toffee on snow.

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PREMIERE CHAINE