Sugar Bush Country

When the temperature during the day rises above freezing but the thermometer still dips below 0 °C (32 °F) overnight, the sap starts flowing in the maple trees of Canada and the New England states. The sap is collected and boiled down by a proportion of 40 to 1 to make maple syrup. You really have to try the real stuff to appreciate maple syrup.

Canada produces about 3/4 of the world's maple syrup.

Sugar Maple (Érable à sucre)

Canada's national tree - found in the Canadian Maritime provinces and southern Ontario & Quebec. It can grow as high as 35m (120 ft). It grows best in deep soils as found in the southern Canadian Shield. Maple saplings can tolerate deep shade, waiting for an opening in the canopy of leaves overhead to shoot up and grab their spot in the sun.

The Sugar Maple is also the state tree of a number of US states, including New York, Vermont, West Virginia & Wisconsin.

What's special about Sugar Maples?

Wood fibre in maples contains gas rather than water as in other trees. When this gas cools at night, it contracts which draws sap up from the roots. When the tree heats up again, the gas expands which results in pressure inside the tree's trunk. If a hole is drilled into the tree trunk, this pressure is released. The maple sap remains sweet until buds begin forming and the chemistry of the sap changes.

In other types of trees, sap does not begin to flow until the buds begin forming. Unlike the sugar maple, their wood fibre cells contain water, which freezes and so expands, in the early spring. So, at night, the sap returns to their roots.

Autumn Colours

In winter,

leaves could freeze, resulting in tissue damage
leaves can't make food for the tree, because there isn't enough sunlight
when the ground freezes, there is no water available to the roots

So, in preparation for winter, a corky layer closes off the stem of the leaf and chlorophyll production shuts down. This causes the green colours of summer to be replaced by orange, red, purple and brown. The buds are already formed ready for spring next year.

Potash

The sugar maple was the original source of potash. Fluids extracted from maple ash were boiled down in iron pots. Potash has been used in soap, bleach and in the manufacture of glass and pottery. Now, it is an important ingredient in commercial fertilizers.

Maple Links

Zoo Woods University of Toronto
Mixed Wood Plains Ecozone
Epicurious dictionary Cooking with Maple Syrup
Quebec Maple Syrup Producers
Ontario Maple Syrup Producers