Maple syrup tapping season in North Bay begins early this year

With a drill in one hand and a hammer in the other, coming off a record year in maple syrup production, trees are being tapped at Matthews Maple Syrup farm in Powassan.

“We have half the bush tapped right now and the last few days with the warm weather and the rain yesterday, the sap was running,” said co-owner Dave Matthews.

With a drill in one hand and a hammer in the other, coming off a record year in maple syrup production, trees are being tapped at Matthews Maple Syrup farm in Powassan. (Eric Taschner/CTV News)

“We had two of our pump stations all tapped and ready to go.”

Matthews has roughly 15,000 taps in 12,000 trees on the property. The unusually warmer weather means more than half of the trees are already drilled with sap flowing through.

Since the start of February, the winter weather has been fluctuating between lows of -20 to highs of 5.

“In the last week and a half, the weather was perfect,” he said. “Now it’s turning cold tomorrow (Friday), so we probably won’t be tapping tomorrow with a high of -14.”

The ideal conditions for maple tapping are just below freezing overnight for the wood to freeze and then the temperatures need to reach a few degrees above zero in the morning.

A long cold dip on the horizon is likely going to complicate things for producers.

“This start gets everything going but then you’re in a bit of a waiting period,” said Kyle Gilbertson, vice-president of the Ontario Maple Syrup Producers Association Algoma and District.

“Fluctuating back and forth is a little bit of a challenge. I’m looking at the forecast and we’ve got a freeze up still yet into March.”

But before that happens, Matthews is taking advantage of the warm spell and is starting to boil the first large batch of sap into liquid gold in the form of maple syrup this week.

“This will be the fourth time in 45 years that we boil in February,” he said.

“If we have 3,000 gallons of sap, we should make 50 gallons of syrup. So that’s nothing to sneeze at.”

Gilbertson said many producers had a strong 2022 due to weather conditions.

“It was an excellent year. If not the best on record for a lot of people,” he said.

“It’d be nice to continue the trend. But it is very hard to say until the season ends.”

Ontario currently is ranked third in Canada for maple syrup production, behind Quebec and New Brunswick.

There are currently 600 OMSPA members registered, but likely thousands of hobbyists across Ontario.