A Ridiculously Canadian Reflection

I’ve been reflecting on what it means to be ridiculously Canadian. Being ridiculously Canadian to me means how absurd, how normal and something that we may or may not take for granted because we have just done it this way for so long. Like milk in a bag for instance. Why question it until someone points out that it is just ridiculous.

As a settler on unceded territory of the q̓ic̓əy̓ (Katzie)… land of the moss, each year I am also highly aware of our impact and being reminded leading up to Canada Day what that means.

Wrapping up the end of National Indigenous History month, this year I downloaded a special keyboard add on and font so that I can write proper characters only to find out that my computer doesn’t currently support it. It’s too old. How ridiculouas. Which tells you just how new all of this is in the steps in the healing journey.

I grapple a lot with what to write especially this weekend of all weekends. We have this long weekend where we are confronted with honouring the ancestral knowledge keepers of this land and then bam transition into Canada Day. A ridiculous chasm between those two things making it a ridiculously uncomfortable weekend if you stop and think about it. But, without discomfort, wounds do not heal, and trust is slow to be gained.

This place of discomfort, where the growth is needed is an important place. I was reading an article about how many Indigenous cultivators are reclaiming the art form of growing. Last year according to Stats Canada, Agriculture saw roughly 3% growth in reclamation amongst Indigenous food producers up to roughly 27% up from 23% the prior year. This number excites me on so many levels.

With all of that said, I grappled with what to write as a settler. Profound isn’t my place this weekend but an acknowledgement of appreciation for something that unifies and given that I am growing in a little community plot maple syrup poured out on my mind in all its liquid gold form now that hockey is over.

But first, without Indigenous knowledge sharing and trading, we would not have maple syrup and products in the form that we know today. We have the Indigenous peoples of the Eastern Woodlands, including the Abenaki, Haudenosaunee and Mi’kmaq to thank for the discover of sap gathering and the distillation process.  The process has sustained northern life for thousands of years and this tradition has known uses as a sweetener, anaesthetic, and in the process of curing meats just to name a few.

As someone who has a growing passion for food and how we cultivate what we eat, it’s interesting to me that the discovery came to be. Like I would love to be a fly on the wall of that day. Like did they accidentally knick a tree with a tool and it started leaking sap and someone licked it and didn’t die so they set up a discovery zone to figure out how they could use it? Like that’s how I imagine it went down.

But what is so ridiculous about maple trees and maple syrup you ask?

It’s a labour-intensive fine art that kind of goes under appreciated and is rich in good minerals for our diet. Apparently, it offers 100% of your daily manganese intake, as well as some of your riboflavin, zinc, magnesium, calcium, and potassium.

There is a season in the growing year when the tree releases starch in the form of sugar, the sugar mixes with the added water from the root system and then forms the sap as the spring temperatures rise.

The taste of the syrup depends on when the sap runs.

Originally it was actually made as maple sugar instead of maple syrup for easier storage in the early days. Real maple syrup, if sealed properly can be stored at room temperature for many years without going bad. Once it has been exposed to air, it should be refrigerated so that it does not crystallize or mould.

Many tribes call the time when sap runs as “sugar moon,” also known as a challenging time to go into wooded areas when heavy snow fall can drop falling branches overhead while going to check and collect sap.

Originally collection was through birch carved buckets hanging from the tree to collect the sap and a drilled hole with a wood spigot would help. Then once collected the sap would be stored in clay pots. Today, that type of pot is now a metal container.

Growing up my favourite thing in the whole wide world was going to the sugar bush in Quebec.

For those that don’t know, modern day Canada hosts 75% of the worlds maple product production for export. And the locals have learned from the old traditions passed down generation after generation how to remove the tree sap from the maples and distill it down to what is known as maple syrup. Row upon row of old groves of Maple Trees teem with sap, tapped during that sweet spot of the year.

As a child growing up on the border of Ontario and Quebec, during that sweet spot, we would all clamour into busses and head over during the harvesting season. There they would demonstrate and give maple taffy to us. Essentially, they would pour boiling hot maple syrup into shapes in hard packed snow with a lollipop stick stuck in the middle of it. When it would harden you have one of the best sweet treats ever to be discovered. There is something quite sacred about the sugar shack visits and having that once a year treat. A sweet memory, literally.

What is amazing to me is that maple trees don’t start producing until they are about 30 years old, and they can live up to 100 years old so there is about a 70-year window where they can harvest. Did you know that the ratio of distillation for harvesting about 40 litres of sap for 1 litre of maple syrup as the final product? And the average tree taps about 50 litres of sap in a season.

In my readings and acknowledgement for my appreciations and further learning during this month, that once the collection is done for the harvest, ceremonies of gratitude to Creator are had amongst the harvesters at the sugar shack longhouses. The harvest is not for the faint of heart and with the risks associated with climate change, showing appreciation for what the land is able to share with us is vital to sustainable practices.

So, the next time you have pancakes, or chicken and waffles or crepes or French toast with real maple syrup, take a moment to recognize the ancestors that imparted their knowledge. And pause in appreciation. So, I want to thank all the Indigenous people for their knowledge keeping and sharing of the traditions of tree tapping practices that are still imparted in the traditions of present-day Canadian culture.  

Now go on and go be ridiculously responsible this long weekend and pour one over your meal.