Canada is often called the land of the maple. Indeed, the maple leaf is our national emblem. The Eastern Townships is one of the areas in Canada best suited for maple syrup production. In fact, over half of the North American crop was, and still is, produced in the Province of Quebec. Much of it comes from the Eastern Townships, where, during the months of March and April, ideal temperatures exist for making maple syrup (five to ten degrees Celsius in the daytime, below freezing at night).
Maple syrup and maple sugar have been produced in the Eastern Townships since the 17th century. The manner in which the Indigenous peoples went about making syrup was to strike a maple tree with a tomahawk, catch the sap in a birch bark container, and boil it in a clay pot. The finished product was dark, thick, impure syrup, very different from what we produce today. It was the Indigenous who taught the white settlers about maple syrup.