News - Proulx Sugarbush & Berry Farm - Cumberland, Ontario near Ottawa

Asked what she likes about her job, Giséle Proulx skips not a beat. "Me, I like dealing with people. I like to talk about what I do, what I love."

Lucky lady, because there's no shortage of customers, or the occasional newspaper columnist, curious about Proulx Sugar Bush, the business Giséle operates with her husband François at 1865 O'Toole Rd. in Cumberland.

So, how's this year's syrup production, which began in early March and should run until mid-April, shaping up?

"As of yesterday, good," says Giséle. "If we go into a warm spell, it could be a short season."

The ideal weather for maple syrup farms (the Proulx farm produces about 1,600 litres of the sweet stuff every year) is minus five degrees over night, plus five degrees in the day.

At those temperatures, the sap journeys back into the roots at night and courses up during the day, some of it to be siphoned off and boiled down to yield the pancake topping all patriotic Canadians love.

Some of those trees took a beating in the 1998 ice storm, adds Giséle, but they've mostly recovered. Good thing: a maple tree is 30-40 years old before it can be used.

What does she call those little metal or plastic gizmos that, whacked into the trees, drip sap into the seeming miles of plastic tubing that carry it, with the help of a vacuum pump, to the evaporator (or "sugar") shack?

"Taps. In French, they're called goudrelles. In the Beauce and Rigaud, they have their own terminology. It all has to do with language and grandparents and stuff like that."

It was, in fact, Francois Proulx's grandfather, Napoleon Proulx, who kicked off this third-generation maple syrup business by tapping into the trees on his dairy farm for commercial-scale syrup production in 1945.

Farmers have produced maple syrup for themselves since shown the trick by First Nations people in colonial times. Ask around, and you'll still find country dwellers in Giséle and François took over and expanded the maple syrup business in 1993. The sugar bush is now open to the general public on weekends and by reservation during the week. Drop by and you'll see first-hand how syrup is made, get to taste fresh maple taffy and dig into the scrumptious fare at the farm restaurant.

The Proulx farm has also expanded into pick-your-own strawberries and raspberries, sweet corn that I'll gladly vouch for, pumpkins, hayrides, and other ventures.

With its clay soil and high mineral content, explains Giséle, the family's current 89-acre bush produces darker and bolder tasting syrup than you'd get from a sandy soil.

Giséle worries about climate change, which has already started cutting into the farm's syrup production.

Trees, she says, have a tough time when freakish winters like this year's shrink their dormant period.

"A virus comes along, they're tired just like we are and they can't fight it. That's why we have the winter, for them to rest."

"At the end of the season, you're happy it's done," she says with a laugh. "You go back to a quiet time and lock yourself in your office and pay your bills."