YUM! 🍁

Artifact #90261

Donor: Don & Flora Gamblin

It's maple sugar season!

What is your favourite way to celebrate? Snow candy... syrup on pancakes... in cookies or cakes... maple butter spread on toast... a piece of maple sugar melting on your tongue?

These spiles are hand carved wooden spouts with two metal nails in the end to hold the sap bucket against the tree. In the past, producers hand collected sap by hammering a tap (spile or spout) into the tree and hanging a bucket on it.

The sap would flow slowly out ofhe tree, filling the bucket hanging below.

After some time had passed, the sugarmaker would then collect the bucket and empty it into a barrel on a sled or wagon, which would be pulled by a horse or tractor to the sugar shack for boiling.

Today, in most operations, the trees are still tapped but these taps are connected to a plastic tubing system making the sap collection process much easier. These tubing systems can easily be seen jumping from tree to tree on a scenic drive through rural areas of the province this time of year!

Did you know it takes an average of 40 litres of sap to make one litre of maple syrup?

According to the New Brunswick Maple Syrup Association, our province is the third largest maple producer in the world with a production of over 3 million kilograms of maple syrup annually.

Check out the Tourism NB site https://tourismnewbrunswick.ca/maple-syrup to find a sugar camp near you. Try some of their delicious recipes.