Silver pails hang off dozens of trees as far as the eye can see. My brother and I dredge through the snow away from the barn then head down an icy path. A buttery smell guiding us like a siren into a large cabin. The door swings open with a hefty nudge. In front of us is a stainless steel drum nearly as high as the ceiling with gauges and tubes, lots of tubes. A deep inhale and we know we are in the right place; the sugar shack.
How things have changed since the early 1970's. My younger brother and I returned to a sugar shack this year with my nephew and grandson but it wasn't quite what I remembered, except for that distinctive smell. The displays and photos brought back a lot of memories though. On the walls were pictures, snow shoes, a spile display, and shelves with bottles of golden liquid.
One photo had a man holding a handheld drill tapping a tree. I remember vaguely taking a class trip one spring to a sugar bush where we had a tree tapping demonstration. A small hole was drilled by hand into a maple tree then a small fitting, called a Spile, was inserted then tapped snugly into place. Our guide then hung the sap bucket to collect the sap. Once enough sap was collected, we carried a bucket (from a previously tapped tree) over to be processed - where by the sap is boiled out. I was astonished to hear it takes approximately 40 gallons of natural sap to produce one gallon of syrup. There were three large metal pots set over a wood burning fire. Our guide added our sap from the buckets. We learned that traditionally, the heating would have taken place in a "sugar shack" or "maple house"; We were all given popsicle sticks and enjoyed the stories of the origins of maple syrup while our guide made us maple candy rolled on snow from the warm maple syrup.
Another black and white photo shows a team of horses pulling a bobsleigh loaded with equipment. I wondered if those were the horses my dad, a blacksmith, would make special bar and stud shoes for so they could get through the heavy snow or icy paths in the bush.
A charcoal sketch also caught my attention. It showed a few natives, clad in furs, chopping trees with an axe in a dense bush. This too brought back memories of a family friend, Mona, who had a sugar bush tour on her ancestral land. She would take visitors back into a ceremonial circle where there was a large cauldron hanging off a tripod of birch logs over a fire and enlighten everyone the technique of maple sugar making hundreds of years ago. She would demonstrate how her ancestors would plunge hot stones into the sap to reduce it into syrup by evaporating the excess water. She explained how maple syrup was used medicinally and how children might have a very sweet treat by removing the frozen water layer after the nightly freezing of the sap.
Other memorabilia, like, the several pairs of old snow shoes with leather straps, too high to touch, the spile display, and an old board where someone recorded the taping dates from as far back as 1906. In the hallway was a deed to the land dating back to 1892. The best part eating the pancakes smothered in maple syrup. I picked up a card with a maple icing recipe on it (attached) and signed up for the horse drawn sleigh ride through the modern sugar bush. I loved seeing the countless blue pipeline tubes attached to the trees and seeing the reverse osmosis machine. Next time you go to a maple farm, ask to see the evaporator and inquire about how they get rid of the dreaded sugar sand. Some places will have a device similar to a pool test kit called a "grader". This will determine the grade maple syrup from dark to light or sweet to super sweet. The Ontario Maple Syrup Producers Association states "All retail maple syrup, sold by Ontario producers, regardless of grade, must contain a minimum sugar content of 66 percent and be created exclusively from the concentration of maple sap. The difference between maple syrups is strictly colour and the intensity of its maple flavour."
See you at the canning tank.
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