It's Maple Syrup Festival Time - The Sap is Running

Around this time of the year, my family and I pile into the car and head to the local maple sugar-bush. That's what we did this past weekend.

Why? It's Maple syrup festival time!

This year has been a phenomenal year for production of maple syrup. The temperature at night has been around -5 degrees Celsius and during the day it climbs up to around 4-8 degrees Celsius. That is perfect for getting the syrup running. And boy, was it running.

If you are ever in Ontario or Quebec between March and April I would suggest that you check out the local maple festivals. Check out the festivals happening around Ontario, at the To Do Canada site. https://www.todocanada.ca/maple-syrup-festivals-ontario/

The festival that we attend is at Mountsberg. The Mountsberg location has been producing maple syrup for over 150 years. It's now a conservation area and is adjacent to a Raptor Rehabilitation Centre. We stopped in to visit the raptors first.

The Raptor Centre has several bald eagles(not indigenous to Ontario), golden eagles (indigenous to Ontario), owls and hawks and falcons. All convalescing or permanent residents.

My wife and youngest son look on at Scarlet. Scarlet was found wearing falconry equipment, but was not banded. She had also been hit by a car which left one of her wings permanently damaged.

Meet Chomper. He is a human imprinted bird who had been taken from the wild to be kept as a pet. He's been at the sanctuary since 1989. Truly a wise old owl.

I spotted the signs to take us out to the sugar-bush and Maple Town. Just follow the pile of pancakes. Nothing like fresh pancakes and pure maple syrup on a warm and sunny day.

On our way out to the sugar-bush we stopped to have a look at how the sap was running. It takes about 40 litres of sap to make 1 litre of syrup. The trees should be about 30 cm in diameter for each tap. A tap is the spigot that is "tapped" into the tree. The buckets are hung on the taps. Most trees have one bucket. Thicker trees can support one or more.

A view of Maple Town as we made our way into the sugar-bush. There are about four buildings in the sugar-bush. The sugar shack (where all the magic happens), the candy shack (they make maple candy from further refined syrup). There is also a small store and the kitchen/"restaurant".

The settlers would typically boil the syrup in the kettle drums to remove the water. The syrup was moved to smaller kettles to control temperature and ensure it did not burn.

Technology improved over the years and they ended up using a flat pan by the mid 1800's. This methodology is still in use today and gives us the nice golden delicious maple syrup. A large flat pan is housed in the sugar shack. Below is a smaller outdoor version of the flat pan.

And finally, what we came for. A big stack of pancakes and apple cider. The pancakes were HUGE. We grabbed a picnic table, in the sun, and chowed down.

Fini. I was stuffed for the rest of the day. Thankfully the walk back to the car was helpful at working off some of those carbs.

Talking about carbs. Did you know that pure Maple Syrup is a natural product that can be used as a sweetener. It's common use, we all know, is as a topping on flap-jacks/pancakes/hotcakes. It has many nutrients (calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, and zinc. Vitamins such as thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, and B6.) Keep in mind that it is also very high in natural sugars.

Maple syrup is about 2/3rds sucrose (as in table sugar) and a 100 grams of it therefore supply around 67 grams of sugar^[1].

Replacing sugar with maple syrup may not work out for daily use, but certainly can be used to cut the sugar content of baking by about 1/3.

We are lucky to live in an area that has access to pure Maple Syrup. There's nothing like it for pancakes or waffles. I even put it on my porridge. Maple Syrup is ingrained as part of Canada's cultural fabric. We export Maple Syrup to about 50 countries and produce around 70%^[2] of the world's Maple Syrup.

About four years ago, my youngest and I did a series of videos. One of those videos was a trip to Maple Town. It was in our early days of producing videos, so please excuse the sound quality. He was cute as hell back then, now look at him - All attitude :-)

Again, thanks for joining us on our trip to Maple Town. I sincerely hope you enjoyed your time with us.

^{@Jasonbu, Oldest Son (a rare appearance), Wife, Youngest Son (from the video)}

Let us know what you think.

What do you call pancakes? Flapjack, pancake, hotcake?

Have you ever enjoyed pure Maple Syrup? What did you put it on?

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1. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/maple-syrup ↩

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maple_syrup ↩