There are few things that are more Canadian than maple syrup, and last week the Carman Beavers, Cubs and Scouts had the opportunity to learn how exactly the sweet confection is made—from harvesting the sap, to refining it into the beautiful amber colour that one would find on a store shelf.
John Heard, syrup-making enthusiast and former Scout Leader of more than 30 years, invited the crew out to his property to follow along as he walked them through the process.
Tapping the right trees
Heard shared that this was not the first time the Carman Beavers, Cubs and Scouts had been out to the property, and many of the kids were excited to be back.
“First we meet at the campfire, and I lead them over to a couple of trees I have not tapped yet,” He said, referencing the act of drilling a hole into a tree and placing in it a spout, “We tap them, and fortunately this year the flow was just gushing when we opened them. So, the kids got to see the full flow in action, the dripping, and collect the sap and taste it.”
In the bush, there are many different types of trees, and one of the things that Heard teaches the kids is which ones they are looking for.
“You need to make sure you tap maple trees, and not elm or oak. So, you need to identify trees to a certain extent.”
Enter the evaporator
Once the tree sap has been collected, Heard says that the next step in the process is to bring it back to a piece of equipment he calls an evaporator.
“It’s just two large stainless-steel pans that I have over wood-fire... to get one gallon of syrup, I need to boil away about forty gallons of water. So, it takes a lot of wood.”
Collecting the wood needed and cutting it using an old-fashioned two-person saw setup is something that Heard also gets the kids to work on together so that the fire stays blazing throughout the evaporating process.
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“I use all this energetic labour to help lug some of these logs that are cut up out of the bush... They seem to enjoy that, and it burns off energy.”
He continued, saying that once they are done with the fire, they use it to roast hot dogs and marshmallows, as well as using some of the remaining syrup water to make hot chocolate.
“So, they go home well-fed and stinking of smoke,” he laughed.
For Heard, the entire experience of getting the kids outside and learning with their hands is what it’s all about.
“That’s the difference between scouts and school. In school, you sit at a desk and you learn things. They don’t let you run around with sticks and stuff like that... That’s why you go to the scouts.”
Anyone interested in signing up to be a part of the Carman Beavers, Cubs, and Scouts can do so by visiting their Facebook page.
- With files from Robyn Wiebe -