A few weeks ago my sister asked if we were interested in a maple syrup tour for my niece’s birthday party. After a pre-requisite “Elf” joke: “Syrup’s my favourite!” we headed out to Elmhurst Outdoors last weekend.
I had never heard of it until my sister organized this outing but it is an amazing place. (It would probably be even more amazing if you were an outdoorsy-type). Besides the maple syrup tours, there is cross country skiing and snowshoeing in the winter; kayaking and canoeing in the better weather.
This tour takes you through several stops outlining the changes in maple syrup production from native americans through present day. It’s a bit of a hike uphill. The weather was beautiful, so the parkas were not necessary, but with the melting snow, the boots definitely were.
It’s a working maple syrup production so there are sap lines running through the trees
This hasn’t been a good spring for maple syrup; not enough warm days and cool nights to get the sap running. It takes 40 buckets of sap to make 1 bucket of syrup; I loved the visual aid:
My favourite part (of course) was eating the maple syrup from the snow. We finished the stop with pancakes and sausage for lunch. Our group of kids enjoyed the day; the word “fantastic” was used. It was great to finally have some nice spring weather!
