This year’s “old-fashioned” winter, with its consistently cold temperatures and significant snow cover, delayed the start of the annual sap run. The race began with a bang for area producers this past week.
Jeff Blair, of Vergers Blair Orchards, explained that while the trees were quite frozen, there was not a lot of frost in the ground to hold them back once temperatures started to rise. “The old timers always said that when the snow is up around the trees, they won’t run well until it melts back from the trunk,” he said, noting it would take a good warm shot to get the season underway.
After several days of above zero temperatures, steam will be rising from shanties across the Valley over the coming days.
According to the Quebec Maple Syrup Producers Association, there are around 159 sugar operations in the Haut-Saint-Laurent, with just under 922,000 taps in production. This generates over $4.2 million pounds of the golden liquid, which contributes about $14 million to the local economy.
The 2025 season was especially good. Exports of maple syrup from Quebec grew by 15 per cent to a total value of $800 million. The hope is that this season will continue this momentum, despite the later start.
The hard work of sugaring
Of course, the season does not start when the sap starts to run. Producers begin fixing lines and trimming branches in their maple bushes as early as December, with the goal of tapping by mid-January. This year was a challenge, acknowledged Blair. Frigid temperatures in January and much of February were not optimal for tapping. “You will crack the bark on the tree,” he explained, noting that anything below -12 degrees is simply too cold.
“It takes the same amount of work to tap and get ready, and the same amount of work to untap and clean everything up,” said Blair, regardless of the season. “So, it’s always better to have a good one,” he said, with a laugh.
Last year, Blair was still cleaning up from the sugar season when the apple trees started to bud. He prefers the quick pace of sugaring to the drawn-out commitment of apple farming. He now boils with his nephew Mike, in keeping with family tradition – the Franklin-based orchard and sugar bush is running into its fifth generation.
The sugar operation was originally called Blair Brothers Registered. His grandfather and great-uncle had 10,000 taps and collected the sap from buckets with a horse-drawn cart. Eventually the horses were replaced with tractors, and sap buckets were retired with the installation of plastic tubing and vacuums.
“I think back to that a lot,” said Blair, admitting he sometimes misses the traditional, less hectic days of bucket collecting. As for whether this season will see another year of record yields, he shrugs. “The saying is that if it’s a good sugaring year, all the crops are going to be good. And, that kind of stands true,” he said. “But, we’ll see.”