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Sugaring off in the Eastern Townships -Partie de Sucre, Cantons de l'Est
Hatley, Eastern Townships of Québec, Canada
2:45 pm EST
© 2004 David Gibson, All Rights Reserved.
Most of the sugar camps are family owned and operated. On a nice day families and friends gather at the sugar camp for fun and to help out with collecting and boiling the sap. The sap is almost water clear and it takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. The syrup is further boiled to thicken and then poured on snow to make taffy, an incredibly sweet smooth treat. No wonder this tradition continues. For the sap to run, the temperature must go above freezing during the day and freeze again at night.
This year the sap began to run in early March and then stopped for about 10 days (right around March 20th) as the daytime temperature was below freezing. Rather than taking a pano of an empty sugar camp, I waited until the sap started running again. This photo was actually taken on March 28 - the first time that the sap ran again.