March 15th, 2014

We finished tapping the maple trees at Laurel Creek on Monday with my friend Fire-Todd and a few kids on March Break. It is hard slogging in the bush this year with all the snow.

Everyone keeps asking if the long winter will affect the sap flow. We had a good growing season last year, so I think there is lots of sugar stored in the trees. There is also a lot of moisture in the soil. As long as we get some temperatures that flip-flop back and forth above zero and below zero, the sap will flow. A sudden rise in temperature that sees the mercury stay above zero will be the end of the syrup season. Two years ago on March Break, the temperature went to plus 20 (remember?) and stayed above zero for several days. The buds on the trees started to open, and the trees started processing the sugar to grow leaves. Once this happens, the sugar content in the sap drops, and the sap becomes a bitter tasting, cloudy fluid, unsuitable for syrup production.

So the maple syrup season is certainly delayed this year, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that syrup production in Ontario will be any less. Jean-Jacques Rousseau said, “Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.” And as Outdoor-Ed-Guy Al pointed out, there are lots of signs of spring that indicate a change is coming soon.

Here is Fire-Todd and I in a fun sugar bush video we made a couple of years ago…

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBH2KKCzL3o]