Sugaring off requires help from friends and Mother Nature
Turning sap into syrup is a very labour intensive process. Each year Marie Stephenson taps 30-35 maple trees at her MadRiviere farm on the Mulmur- Nottawasaga Townline and relies on help from friends to reduce it to the sweet treat for which Canada is known worldwide.
There are many hobbyist producers at the Creemore Curling Club who are happy to help Stephenson with the sugaring off. On the day we visited, Paul Crevier was tending the fire and Gord and Catherine Fuller, who have their own maple syrup operation on the 12/13 Sideroad of Clearview, were on hand for taste testing and help with skimming.
Stephenson first started making syrup with her husband in 2003. They did it just for fun and the love of the outdoors. In those early years, they boiled the sap over an open fire on the bank of the Mad River. The wood fire is essential, Stephenson says, to impart a slightly smoky flavour. Eventually they built their sugar shack, which she proudly notes is from 100 per cent recycled materials. The wood came from fallen trees on the property and the boiler is built from salvaged metal from the local scrapyard. Guests and helpers are often treated to delectable meals which Stephenson prepares on the woodstove in the sugar shack.
Mother Nature is firmly in charge of the process. Stephenson says, “Last year the season started around Feb. 1. This year, there was so much snow we couldn’t get out to tap the trees until about a month later. Last year we got 98 bottles of syrup. The year before it was 167. It just depends how long the sap keeps running.”
The ideal weather for sap collection is cold nights with temperatures below freezing and warmer days. Stephenson says the sap has been gushing since early March, with pails needing to be emptied at least once per day. It takes 40 litres of sap to produce a litre of syrup. The sap is boiled for a minimum of 10 hours and filtered three times to remove sediment before being bottled.
Ontario produces roughly 1.7 million litres of maple syrup per year, making it the second largest producer in Canada, according to the Ontario Federation of Agriculture.
Syrup can range in colour from pale and golden, which has a more subtle flavour, all the way to dark and very dark grades, which have higher mineral content and a more robust maple flavour. Stephenson says you never know from batch to batch what you’re going to get. The length of the season is also unpredictable.
“Once the leaves start budding it slows the flow of sap and changes the flavour of the syrup so that’s the end of the season,” says Stephenson.
