Julie Ann Bertram
Special to the Tribune
While this year’s weather has been strange and unpredictable, it’s actually been favourable for maple syrup production, according to local producers.
Last year, Canada saw production plummet more than 40 percent due to unfavourable weather conditions, according to data from Statistics Canada, but this year has been a whole different story. Ideal temperatures for the sap to flow from maple trees are between 5 and -5 Celsius, dropping below freezing at night and rising during the day. We saw temperatures in that range starting in late February and it’s still going.
Backyard sap boilers around West Nipissing welcome spring each year by tapping their trees and making various grades of syrup for personal consumption. Many maple hobbyists indicated that this was their best year yet. One maple buff, Julie Simon, tapped 70 trees on her property and commented, “We collected sap at four different times, did four big boils, and made close to eight gallons of syrup with our tiny yard set up!”
Daniel and Tracy Séguin of Sucerie Séguin Sugarbush, makers of award-winning syrup and the largest producer of maple products locally, were nervous along with most maple producers, about a short season due to the lack of snow and warm winter temperatures. But, “the extended spring conditions with spatterings of precipitation in rain or snow created a long sugar season with excellent sap flows,” according to Tracy.
Still, there were environmental challenges. Tracy explains that “the spring following the Parry Sound and River Valley fires, sugar content of the sap was quite low, averaging about 1.7% Brix [the unit of measure used for syrup density]. We suspect that this might be related to the substantial smoke from forest fires last summer. Low sugar levels in the sap mean that even more water has to be removed to reach maple syrup, which is 66-68% Brix. Despite that, flows were substantial, and the flavour consistently great for the entire season.”
Sucerie Séguin Sugarbush hosted enthusiastic visitors during Maple Weekend on April 6-7. “Maple Weekend, held the first weekend of April annually, is a provincial initiative to promote our special spring harvest to the general public, inviting them to get out and visit a local sugarbush. It was a beautiful sunny spring weekend with the sap running and evaporator humming. A self-guided tour and activities through the forest and sugar house culminated in sweet tastings of maple butter and jelly in our on-site store and maple taffy on snow. Our family had to be on top of the taffy game this year, collecting and saving snow in the freezer whenever Mother Nature provided it,” Tracy describes.
The sugarbush is accessed along Dokis Road, through trails accessible by ATV or on foot. That did not deter those with a sweet tooth. “We had a good turnout of returning and new clients learning about Indigenous and local historical features concerning maple sugaring, as well as new technologies that we have embraced to ensure sustainability for our sugarbush and business.”
The Séguins are cognizant of sustainable practices for their continued production. “Over the last 15 years, we have transitioned from collecting sap in buckets and running large equipment through the forest on a daily basis when the ground is fragile, prone to compaction and erosion, to our tubing with vacuum sap collection system. The taps are smaller, resulting in less compartmentalization or damage to the tree from the tapping process than previous methods. We developed a forest management plan allowing us to harvest damaged or wind blown trees, opening up the canopy for growth of a new generation of trees. Both an uneven aged forest and a mixed species of trees help us to sustain the forest that we sugar in. We also spread the ashes out of our evaporator and camp stoves in our sugarbush, helping to boost pH of the forest floor which enhances tree health.”
That care for sustainability extends into the treatment process as well. “In the sugar house, we use reverse osmosis to remove about 2/3 of the water, so that the sap collected at 2% sugar (or this season an average of 1.7%) enters our wood evaporator at approximately 8% sugar content. This saves us a tremendous amount of wood fuel and allows us to get a few hours of sleep most nights. Two years ago we also modified our evaporator, adding an extra burn chamber under our back pans. The modification resulted in a 12% efficiency of our evaporator, and a much more even boil,” says Tracy.
