The origin of the Maple Sugar Festival
Maple Sugar Festival is a traditional folk festival in Canada. Every March, when spring is full, the farms producing maple sugar are painted new, and everyone tastes the sweet gifts given by nature. The traditional Maple Sugar Festival is open to visitors from home and abroad, especially children.

Some farms also specially retain the old Indian collection of maple SAP and maple sugar production equipment, with a special spoon will burn hot sugar water, poured on the snow, cold and hot fusion, immediately condensed into a cake, people pick up spoon and knife to taste maple sugar, eating while talking.

In the festival, the ancient production method is used to perform the process of making maple sugar for tourists, and some also provide free maple sugar cake and "toffee" for tourists to taste on weekends.

During the festival, local residents also enthusiastically performed various folk songs and dances for tourists, leading tourists to enjoy the lush and beautiful maple forest red leaves.

Canada is rich in maple leaves, of which the southeastern provinces of Quebec and Ontario have the most beautiful maple leaves. Canada maple forest is all over, every late autumn maple leaves red as sunset, like flowers in full bloom in summer, so Canada is known as the "maple leaf country".

A long time ago, a chief of a North American Indian tribe went out hunting every day with his strong men. When he came back to the door of his house, he used to cut his stone axe into the trunk of a big tree next to him, as if the tree were his weapon stand. All the trees around his house were his armor-stands, and the tree in which he put his axe depended on his whim.

That March morning, as usual, he removed his axe from the cut in the trunk of the tree and strutted off. No one noticed, but the SAP began to drip from the opening where the axe had cut it. The SAP trickled down the trunk of the tree, wetting a slightly raised root at the base of the tree, and just below the root was a small bark bucket, which the chief's wife had put under the tree the day before after she had gone to fetch water from the stream.

The barrel was leaning, and the bottom edge of the barrel was just under the roots. So, drop by drop, the SAP from the roots of the tree trickled into the little bark-barrel. When it was time to cook dinner, the chief's wife remembered to fetch water. She hurriedly picked up the bark pail she had thrown under the tree, and when her hand sank, there was half a pail of water in it. She was overjoyed, and without thinking, she cooked with the water in the bucket, regardless of the fact that the water did not look dirty, but somehow it was not so clear.

That night's dinner smelled better than any food they had ever tasted before, with a sweetness they had never tasted before. Since then, the North American Indians discovered that syrup can be extracted from the SAP of the tree, and the tree that drops sugar juice is the unique sugar maple in North America.
I have long heard that March and April of each year is the season of maple sugar production. As a newcomer to the Maple leaf country, I do not want to miss this opportunity to learn about the local characteristics.

the Rotary Club of Barrie was selected for the Spring Tonic Maple Syrup Festival at Tiffin Conservation, an event that has spanned more than 30 years. You can feel the process of making maple sugar by the aborigines, drilling tree holes, taking SAP and boiling syrup, and you can also see the new production method of filtration and penetration by modern machines. There are many activities for children to experience.

In cold climates, these trees store starch in their trunks and roots before winter; The starch is then converted to sugar, which rises in the SAP in late winter and early spring. Generally, when the temperature is below 0 degrees at night and above 5 degrees during the day, it is suitable for extracting SAP, and sugar is also a symbol of the beginning of spring in Canada, adding some romantic elements.

🧮 The ancient way of making sugar
By drilling into the trunk and collecting the SAP (FIG. 2, which I secretly tasted, does not taste sweet), it is treated by heating (FIG. 1) to evaporate most of the water, leaving behind a concentrated syrup. 40 kg of maple SAP can only be processed to produce 1 kg of syrup, and maple trees more than 40 years old or more than 25 cm in diameter will produce useful SAP, and the working age can last 100 years.

🧮 New sugar making
It is mainly collected with a suction pump, rather than the traditional cannula and bucket. The collected SAP is usually removed by a reverse osmosis machine (Figure 4) before boiling. The SAP is heated and filtered, adjusted for density, and graded for flavor and color.


The history of maple syrup dates back to the mid-1500s, when explorer Jacques Cartier cut down what they thought were walnut trees and found the SAP rich and sweet. In 1606, Canadian lawyer and author Mark Lescabot witnessed Aboriginal people in the Acadia region (now the French-speaking East coast of Canada) gathering SAP from trees and turning it into syrup, a source of heat for the Aboriginal people in winter.

Activity flow

Take advantage of the March Break to visit your first Maple Syrup Festival with the Kortright Maple Syrup Festival, 📍 9550 Pine Valley Drive, Woodbridge, near Vaughan.

✅ Buy tickets in advance online Mar 9-Apr 7, 2024 9:30am-4/5pm, pre-tax adult $11.5 Senior $9.5 Child 4-13 years old $7.45 Child 3 and younger free 💰 Parking $4.8 pre-tax

✅ We are booked to enter at 10:30am and leave at about 2pm. If we go around quickly and don't eat, we can go all the way in 2 hours.

✅trail is circular, half of the trail is very easy to walk, see a lot of people pushing strollers, the other half is land, but also relatively gentle.

✅ Take the carriage without a lot of foreign money, but really a very small circle, 5 minutes over, bought a maple lollipop photo is very good haha.

✅ There are plenty of explanations and demonstrations on how maple syrup is made, both ancient and modern, the signs are clear and the staff are nice 🍁 it's amazing. The sugar maker cuts a hole in the maple tree, and the SAP flows out along the hole. 97% of the SAP is water, and 3% is sugar. After heating the collected SAP to evaporate most of the water, you can get concentrated syrup (free to taste the syrup, it is really too sweet Mamma mia).


✅ Get together, eat ice maple candy, visit the animals, feed the birds in the woods 🐦 (bring your own small grain), make a wagon (extra ticket required), see the maple candy making

✅ When you finish the circle, you will return to the visitor centre where you started, which has a small restaurant, toilets, gift shop and a small theatre. There were some shows for the kids, the dining room lights were cozy, and we tried the soup (bean and vegetable soup) sausage and pancake with maple syrup, which was OK if it was fresh.


Bruce's Mill(located in Stouffville) is another event location of the same organization, and the explanation and activities should be similar, so you can see which place is more convenient. There are many other maple sugar festival places in Toronto, but at least I think Kortright as a whole is very good, learned a lot of knowledge, the environment and trail are also great, the first time to maple sugar Festival will not step on thunder