Maple Syrup Festivals

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Maple Sugar Bush Lodge
 

In March, there are lots of activities happening in Canada, and many adapted and adopted from other cultures. The Hindu festival of Holi was just this week, the Persian New Year of Nowruz will be soon on March 20, but the biggest even in most cities will be St. Patrick's Day, in which everyone will green plastic hats and beads, drink green beer or green McDonald's milkshakes, and eat corned beef and hash. 

But an event that happens this month that is (nearly) uniquely Canadian is the Maple Sugar Bush Festivals, also known as Maple Syrup Festivals. In most of Eastern Canada, the temperatures are starting to rise just a bit, so that the sap in maple tress is starting to flow. Through tapping the trees (putting a faucet right in the trunk of the tree), liquid, sweet sap will drip out. Historically, this diluted sap would be carried in metal buckets or pails and brought to a large black cauldron where it would be boiled down. 

 

Boiling the maple sap makes it much sweeter, denser, and delicious. Depending on how much you boil it, it could turn into maple syrup, or even maple butter, which has a creamy texture, or maple sugar, which is crystallized.

Modern Maple Syrup Harvesting uses large pieces of land with lots of trees, with tubes running from the trees to big boilers. But this time of year, you can visit a Maple Sugar Farm and have a tour of the grounds. Several years ago, I did just that. 

 

Dumfries Maples is located just outside Fredericton, New Brunswick on Canada's Eastern coast. Here, myself, my family, and several other families and friends toured a large wooden lodge, feasted on homemade pancakes with maple syrup, and enjoyed a horse and wagon ride through the snow. I've also seen historical boiling techniques presented in Ottawa, Ontario, the capital of Canada, in which warm maple syrup is poured over snow, and popsicle sticks are inserted into globs of warm taffy. It turns into a maple lollipop nearly instantly and it quit delicious along with hot chocolate. 

Maple Sugar Taps (Faucets)




Location: Fredericton, NB, Canada

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