Ever since I was a kid I’ve always loved maple syrup. We were not particularly well off as kids, so the syrup of my childhood was usually a knockoff of Mrs. Butterworths or if my mom was feeling extra fancy, she’d sometimes bring home blueberry flavored syrup which seemed exceptionally exotic to my 10 year old tastebuds.
Somewhere along the way though, probably at my grandparents house or some well off friend of mine, pure unadulterated maple syrup made its way to my lips and there was no going back. After that I was hooked, it was the real deal or nothing. I even began putting it on my yearly Christmas List and hoarding it like Scrooge every time I did receive some.
So on a recent trip to Montreal, Québec, the global capital of maple syrup, of course I was going to go check out a sugar shack. We went in the off season, which made finding one open year round somewhat of a chore but finally I settled on Sucrerie de la Montagne and after commandeering a rental car, off we went, leaving the city behind us.
Like all sugar shacks, Sucrerie de la Montagne is nestled among a forest of maple trees and though the gathering of the syrup in the spring is hard, back breaking work, a tough commute is the least of your worries. The trees from which the sap sugar is collected are literally steps away from the processing room. Of course it takes 100’s of trees to create a substantial harvest and Sucrerie does it old school, walking from spout to spout with snowshoes and buckets. We were there on a mild September day, so there was no snow or snowshoes in sight but we still were able to reap the benefits of those cold winter days with a maple syrup inspired meal, served up family style.
Sugar parties first emerged in the 1860’s outside of Montreal, where urban dwellers would escape the city life for a day to reconnect with rural traditions and taste fresh maple syrup from the source. By the 1950’s, the Canadian government, in an effort to boost tourism, encouraged farmers to make sugar shacks more accessible and thus the sugar shack experience was born. Featuring lumberjack style meals, with traditional Québécois food, horse drawn carriage rides and maple snow taffy, a sugar shack afternoon is a delightful step back in time.
As we milled around and waited for our reservation time, the boys were checking out all the vintage decor in the lodge which serves as the restaurant when an older gentleman began talking to them in a language I took to be Québécois as I understood none of it. He seemed intent on giving them something and as he reached into his pockets, he pulled out fistfuls of Canadian coins and dumped them into their hands. It was a generous gesture and later on, while shopping in the gift shop, that same sweet old man’s face was plastered on every can and bottle of maple syrup. We had met the propieitor of Sucrerie de la Montagne and didn’t even know it.
Our lunch at Sucrerie consisted of bacon, mashed potatoes, meatballs, meat pie, which was strangely good, egg soufflé, baked beans, bread, soup and too many other things to mention. It was indeed, a feast and though I tried to warn the boys to come hungry, they sneakily had snacked in the car on the way up, so they weren’t as ravenous as I had hoped they would be. Of course though, when it came time for the dessert, sugar pie, they had no problem fitting that into their taunt little bellies.
After lunch, we wandered the grounds for a bit and made a stop over to the gift shop which was stocked full of maple inspired goods. Then with our bellies full of good food and our arms full of maple syrup gifts, we headed back to the city, and though I was sorry to leave Sucrerie de la Montagne behind, I was already planning a winter trip in my head for someday and could hear those snowshoes calling me back again.
~Sucrerie de la Montagne~
300 Ch.Saint-Georges, Rigaud, Quebec, Canada
Phone # 1-450-451-0831
Open daily from 11am-2pm & 5-7pm
*Reservations highly recommended *
