In a previous post I banged on a little in my ham-fisted way about the importance of traditions.  If you have ever been to the northern New England or southern Quebec woods in the spring, the odds are good you saw some buckets hanging on trees and smelled the sweet sweet aroma of boiling sap in the air. It’s maple sugar time baby.

For you, gentle readers, who may be from far flung corners of our blue little marble, perhaps this practice brought forth a HUH? type of response. As in what is going on there, tree sugar? Are these people mad? Simply put, springtime sap from some species of maple trees is collected, either in pails, which is the old school way, or through a crisscrossing network of pvc tubing that gives the forest something of a cyborg look.

The sap is then boiled down to achieve various levels of viscosity, from syrup to what resembles light brown finely granulated sugar.  Looks very much like heroine when packaged into little bags, which it might as well be. The taste, though obviously sweet, is quite distinctive, woody, smoky and mineral all at once. It kicks ass. You need about 40 liters of sap to make one liter of syrup and the season only runs for a few weeks. It takes a special kind of weather, mild during the day and freezing at night, to produce the necessary flow of sap. As time goes on the sap becomes heavier and darker and the syrup ends up tasting like telephone pole tar, so your window is sort of limited.

In this neck of the woods, so to speak, maple syrup is a staple and a tradition. You’ll find it pretty much in every kitchen and I’m pretty sure you can barter it for goods and services. Many families will gather at a yearly outing to a sugar shack restaurant to eat what was once maple flavoured lumberjack food. More on that in the next post.

The idea of making maple syrup is something the French colonists surely got from the Amerindians, and possibly applied some of their technology (kettles made from metal) to further boil down the sap. By the early 1700’s it had become part and parcel of life in New France. Not surprising as it would have been much cheaper than sugar from the West Indies, though why it was never turned into  rum is a bit puzzling. I guess the production volumes were always low and perhaps people needed sugar more than they did another type of alcohol. Which is interesting because it speaks to our sweet tooth as a nation. Mind you, rum has always been a waste byproduct of making sugar, not the primary goal, except on some French islands, but only after the bottom fell out of their sugar market due to the production in Europe of beet sugar. I’m getting sidetracked. All this to say maple syrup is as Canadian as, well, maple syrup.

Because it is a yearly and time sensitive thing, both the production and first consumption of maple products take on a bit of a ritualistic air. Yes, I know all of this first hand.

It all starts with the coming of the quads.

The invention of the quad bike must have been a tough blow for the ski-doo industry. These woods used to be lousy with ski-doos as various tasks needed to be performed all over. Today the quad rules the land and rightly so, it’s a year round vehicle that is more versatile and easier to handle. Everyone has one, sometimes I think there are more quad bikes than people around here. Also because this is the country, you have some pretty young drivers, it’s a rite (ride) of passage really. You can hitch a trailer to it and it morphs into a tour bus for the kiddies. Unsafe? Probably. Amazing? For sure.

These are work horses and not pretty boy show off machines. Some of them are customized though.

The coming of the quads signals the gathering of the tribe, the workers, the sugar shamans and the people there to do the quality assurance (with their bellies). It does tend to turn to a bit of a party fairly easily.

The sugar shack itself is not decrepit but weather worn, it has patina.

And with the monster fire used to boil the sap, weather proofing is not the biggest concern.

The boilers are wood fired, and though they are stainless steel and there’s plenty of gizmos keeping tabs on various aspects of the process, by and large someone from 250 years ago would be like, “yup, it needs to be a bit thicker, let’s add some wood”.

It really is science as much as art (in our case anyways) and a little extra luck is always welcome.

As the sap boils down slowly for hours, the forest is filled with the sweet smell of maple.

As you would expect this can be hot work, so at times a cold beverage is quite welcome, even if your main task is moral support.

There’s a handy empties/chilling rack outside the shack, some of the bottles have been there for a while, I’m starting to think they’re more of a good luck charm/family fetish at this point. I mean seriously, when’s the last time you saw a stubby?

There are many strange beers around the sugar shack.

This one is made by Molson, yes this Molson. Actually at the brewery in Vancouver but close enough, the one in the pic below is at the edge of Montreal’s old port. In the summer you can smell the fermentation from the Jacques-Cartier bridge when they prepare a batch.

Turns out Old Time Pilsener, which I had never hear of, is in fact an old time brand (1926) from Alberta. It was bought by Molson in the 50’s. Apparently it’s an acquired taste but I thought it was eminently drinkable. I’m a simple man.

As hot as it gets, it can also be quite cold as you’re milling about outside on foot or on your quad. That calls for a specific remedy, something I believe to be unique to this specific drinkskultur. It’s simply called “réduit” and that just means reduction.

I’ll have some réduit please, but just one. I don’t need to have a case of mid day diabetes-hangover.

Réduit is a brave blend of half boiled down sap (hence reduction) straight off the heat and cheap ass pseudo Dutch gin from a plastic bottle. Usually a crusty character makes it for you, it’s part of the experience, plus they know how to get the boiling sap out of the vat without getting scalded. I imagine the uncles chose that tipple years ago out of necessity and it stuck. It’s delicious when you are frozen and you have just one, after that all bets are off, you will end up sick or in Atlantic City.

Often enjoyed outside in a Styrofoam cup, réduit is also a rite (right) of passage and it only tastes good at the sugar shack. I’ve really tried.

As you would imagine all of this requires a considerable amount of wood. In fact logging is the only year round activity related to making maple syrup. Corona for scale, and that’s just a small part of the wall of wood. These aren’t 16 inches fireplace logs, these are 5 feet long and more.

Chopping wood is a big deal around here and there are as many chainsaws as quads. A lot of trees get broken or toppled during windstorms and that provides much of the firewood.

Every once in a while you cut down a wind felled or a sick tree and if by luck you do it at the right level you’ll find traces of a syrup bore hole from decades past.

The dark spot near the middle of the pic is the low part of the bore hole and some dirt has gathered there. I counted at least 30 growth rings after that. That tree was cut down because it was sick, but back when I was a kid somebody made maple syrup from it.

Besides the the chainsaws, the boiling and the drinking, the syrup needs to be canned and packed. Not the hardest job in the world, that’s probably why I’m sometimes involved.

Most of the equipment is vintage, as in it would not be out of place in a museum, it complains, it makes noise, but it never breaks down. The whole place feels a touch liminal, a bit different from the everyday mundane, the rules are a slightly different and people come together that would not usually congregate. There’s a sense of Time as well and of different lives. It’s good to be there.

It really is a different kind of chillin’.

Next up, the food, or how to put on fifteen pounds in a weekend.

Have a great day.

PS: There are some lakes around where you can dive, but the viz is, well, not that great.

I’d much rather get wrecked down south.