Mill River, PEI -
When Mark Arsenault pulled the drill out of (Mill River, Prince Edward Island) maple trees he was tapping last week, sap squirted out.
He started tapping trees earlier than normal this year because of early spring-like conditions. Sap starts running when daytime conditions rise above freezing and runs best on warm, sunny days that follow frosty nights.
Already this year Arsenault's collected more sap than all of last season, which he described as a poor year.
"We're running 200 to 220 litres a day," he said, admitting even better days are likely yet to come.
On a good day, Arsenault estimates that the 98 trees he has tapped could provide up to 500 litres of sap.
Trees can be tapped year after year. A new hole has to be tapped each year and the old ones heal over in a matter of years, Arsenault assured inquiring visitors.
Having snow on the ground on warm March days seems to keep the sap running well.
It's running just in time, too.
This is March break and a visit to the sugar bush is an activity both Mill River Provincial Park and the Rodd Mill River Resort are encouraging.
A ski trail to the sugar shack was packed earlier this week. Warm summer days last week and this mean the sap running earlier than normal in sugar bushes.
The Mill River bush is for demonstration and not for profit.
To be a profitable venture, Arsenault estimated a sugar bush would need to have at least 2,000 trees tapped. Even at that operators would need another job for the rest of the year to make ends meet.
Spigots in most trees are connected to clear blue tubing. During the day a vacuum pump sucks sap out of the tubing and into a collection tub. When the vacuum is not operating gravity brings the sap into the shack.
Buckets are attached to eight spigots, giving visitors a sense of how sap used to be collected.
Visitors to the sugar shack are given ice cream and a generous helping of Mill River maple syrup to try.
Boiling down sap to produce syrup is time consuming. It takes about 40 litres of sap to make one litre of syrup. Boiling it down even further produces candy.
