Discovering Maple Syrup

First Nations people taught the early British and European settlers their methods for making maple syrup from the sap of the sugar maple tree – one of nature’s golden sweeteners – which can only be found in southeastern Canada and northeastern USA. Through the years, harvesting the maple crop has become a big business. There are currently about 2000 maple syrup producers in Ontario who begin work in the early spring and continue working for 3-6 weeks depending on the weather.

The sap needs frosty nights (approximately -3°C) followed by warm sunny days (approximately 3°C to 5°C) in order to flow. Farmers collect sap by drilling a hole in the tree trunk and attaching a spile to direct the sap into a bucket or tubing system. Some sap is still collected in pails and carried to the sugar house in tanks on sleighs and wagons. Other maple syrup producers use plastic tubing and a vacuum pump to bring the sap from the trees to a storage tank near the sugar house.

A sugar maple tree must be about 40 years old before it is large enough to tap for syrup production and can yield a total of 30-40 gallons in a season. To produce maple syrup, you need 40 gallons (135-180 litres) of sap boiled down to make 1 gallon (4.5 litres) of syrup. The syrup can be boiled down further to make maple sugar, maple butter and maple taffy. Although a significant outlay of time and effort is required to harvest a crop with a relatively small output, maple syrup and maple sugar are important agricultural products in Ontario, worth about ten million dollars annually. Maple syrup, maple sugar, and maple taffy are sold around the world.

Sign up for the Sugarbush Tour and experience first hand the traditional methods for making maple syrup.

Note: With special thanks and acknowledgements to the Ontario Maple Syrup Producers Association, Ontario Agri-Food Education and artist, Dwayne Elliott, for the text taken from “Perfectly Natural Maple Syrup” Teacher’s Activity Guide.