NORTH WILTSHIRE, P.E.I. — The tricky part to collecting maple syrup straight from trees doesn’t come until after it’s collected, said hobbyist Kevin Laughlin.
He and his wife, Jackie Waddell, first started collecting syrup with just 20 tree-taps. Now, they’re up to about 120, and the most they’ve ever collected in a single season was about 60 litres, he said.
“That was a lot of buckets of sap.”
They were just one of the booths set up to highlight the many potential uses of woodlots at the P.E.I. Winter Woodlot Tour on Feb. 22.
The event takes place at a different woodlot every year, with this years’ happening behind Bluefield High School in North Wiltshire.
Laughlin demonstrated drilling taps into trees to a group. Once the syrup oozed into the container, the former Green Bay resident used plastic milk jugs to collect it. Laughlin said the tricky part is boiling off its excess moisture.
Check out the following video to learn how to drill a maple syrup tap into a tree:
If the boiling is done indoors, the room needs to be well ventilated to prevent condensation problems.
“Watch it like a hawk. You don’t want to boil a pot over on your stove,” He said.
If it’s done outdoors, make sure the boiling pot is well supported and check local bylaws beforehand to see if there are restrictions in place.
Once the moisture is boiled off, the syrup must be filtered before it’s finally bottled. Laughlin and Waddell like to give bottles of their syrup to friends, relatives or as wedding gifts.
“(It’s) how to have fun with your trees,” he said.
Other booths around the woodlot included watershed organizations, presentations on types of woodlot wildlife and a chainsaw safety demonstration. There were also plenty of activities for kids to enjoy, including snowshoeing and a horse-drawn sleigh rides.
The sleigh ride was one of Laina Carey's favourite parts.
“I liked the horses,” she said.
She capped the experience off by warming up with a cup of hot apple cider. For Carey and her family, the woodlot tour was a great chance to get outside of their home in Charlottetown and enjoy what the countryside has to offer.
“It’s great to just get out in the wintertime,” said Marilyn Carey, Laina's mom.
One of Andrew Lush’s favourite parts was simply wandering around the woodlot to ensure everything was going smoothly.
The president of the Hunter-Clyde Watershed Group helped start the annual event back in 2011. It had to be cancelled in both 2018 and 2019 due to weather, so he was glad they got another event under their belt this year, he said.
The next day, Lush said about 800 people attended on Feb. 22, and at previous year's events they've had over 1,000 people. This was their first year using a property woodlot rather than a privately-owned one, as Bluefield High School’s conservation program wanted to be involved in the event.
The Winter Woodlot Tour made possible in part by the P.E.I. Wildlife Conservation Fund. While it showcased some recreational ways to use woodlots, it’s meant to showcase practical ways to maintain them, Lush said.
“How they can use it, and how they can conserve it as well.”
