The History of Sugar Shacks

HBy Emry-waven Côté

Age 11, Grade 5 Magog Montessori School

istorically, sugar shacks were developed through a combination of Native American and European innovations. French explorer and colonist Pierre Boucher described observing Indigenous peoples making maple sugar in 1664. Long before the beginning of colonization, the Indigenous peoples discovered that maple water had qualities that could restore health after a long winter. Maple water is rich in antioxidants and Quebecol, in addition to containing only 2% of sugar for approximately 98% of water. It not only hydrates you but makes you stronger!

Indigenous people would gather the maple water with a birch bucket. The maple water was not only drunk but also used for cooking. In 1676, maple production changed due to the iron cauldron brought from France which is a big metal pot. This is when the Europeans started changing the production of maple syrup. With the introduction of the metal cauldron, the maple water could be boiled down to a thick, sweet syrup.

Around 1850, is when the birch bucket was replaced by the wooden bucket attached to the tree. The first sugar shacks appeared and a little later, in 1868, the first sugar parties. A sugar party is when you go to the sugar shack and you get to ride a horsedrawn carriage and then have brunch, etc. much like what we do today.

Sugar Shacks Today

Most of our maple syrup is still made in sugar shacks, but some are more industrial, and some are more traditional like the one in the picture. A sugar shack is where maple water is gathered and then boiled down to maple syrup!

When the syrup reaches 7 degrees Fahrenheit over the boiling point of water (212 degrees F), or 219 degrees F, the syrup should be done. It takes about 10 maple water buckets (11 litres per bucket) to make 1 litre of maple syrup (it takes 40 litres of maple water to make 1 litre of maple syrup).

As for the famous 591-millilitre can of maple syrup that we know today, it appeared in supermarkets in 1951. The evaporator, (a device used to turn the liquid form of a chemical substance, such as water, into a vapour) an American invention patented in 1889, slowly adapted to the production of maple syrup in Quebec.

Other more industrial techniques of modern maple groves, including the use of tubing for mass harvesting, made their appearance in 1970. Tubing used in maple production is very common today. It has replaced more traditional practices such as gathering the maple water by hand using buckets and horse-drawn carriages in order to be more efficient.

A newer product that we see in stores today is maple water. It was not until 2013 that Quebec began marketing maple water, the quality of which is guaranteed by certification.

My Personal History

My great-grandfather had a sugar shack located in Compton far away in a forest. At that time, they didn’t have grocery stores so they ate basic foods with their syrup such as eggs, pancakes and bacon, and they especially drank watered-down sap before it became syrup. Back then plastic pipes did not exist, so they used buckets. My great-grandfather’s was a very traditionalstyle sugar shack. They would use a big working horse to collect the water. He had it a part of his life until he sold it to his oldest son, my great-uncle. He ran it from 1960 to 2010, when he stopped running the shack. He would collect sap and transform it mostly with family.

I find that sugaring is an important and fun process. This season I went to a friend’s house and we tapped 30 maples. We plan to boil the sap all together as friends. Our friends say it takes 5-7 hours (I am really excited to boil sap!!). I really liked it so it makes me sad that my great-grandfather’s oldest son sold the sugar shack.