March 5, 2026
Di Robinson
Maple Syrup Production
Di Robinson is one of our very own Lakeview Probus members. We were delighted to have her as our guest speaker in March.
Di lived in Caledon, Ontario, until 2016 when she moved to the Shuswap. Her family moved to a 25-acre farm with maple trees in 1966. After about 10 years, her dad decided to give maple syrup production a try. We were thoroughly entertained with stories about how her dad attempted to produce maple syrup. Di told us they made every mistake in the book, but after 30 years they were pretty good at it. It was never really a commercial business, just enough for themselves and friends.
They increased the number of taps from about 2 dozen to 200 over a few decades as they got better at it. We enjoyed seeing the pictures of their little backyard Sugar Shack, which made production more fun. Naturally, many dogs were included in the pictures, as well as “Big Horse.” We found out how the animals "helped" with the syrup production. 😁
We learned all about the grueling job of producing maple syrup, which involves about 6-8 weeks of intensive work to tap the trees, collect and boil the sap, and eventually get the syrup into bottles. One season Di kept track of the hours she spent collecting and figured she made about 50¢/hour!
Just a few of the many fun facts we learned about maple syrup production on the Robinson farm:
There are 2 chimneys on the sugar shack: one for the fire, one for the steam.
You need 4-5 days where the weather is above freezing during the day and below freezing overnight to begin the tapping.
The season is usually 6-8 weeks, from the beginning of February to the end of March, right about now.
Some of the trees were huge and could take up to three buckets.
The tap you put in the tree is called a spile. Di brought a few for us to see.
A clever way to keep track of which trees you’ve collected from is to put a clothespin on the lid of the bucket and move it around as you collect from each tree. (Di tried putting little sticks on the lids, but they blew off!)
Di would haul buckets of sap in a little wagon to the Sugar Shack to be boiled. She said you had to stay there and watch, or it might boil over. We saw pictures of the syrup as it got hotter. Di used a candy thermometer to see when it reached 219º F.
As the sap boils in the evaporator, it gets a foam buildup on the surface of the sap. That needs to be skimmed off with a screen to prevent trapping too much heat on the surface of the sap, causing a BOIL OVER and loss of precious sap. Thunder (one of the dogs) helped clean up the excess foam! Big Horse also got his share of sap, as it slowly thickened to become syrup.
The syrup was finished inside the house on the kitchen stove. They sterilized bottles and lids in the oven. The syrup is so hot, sterilization really isn’t a problem.
The finishing pot looked like a big coffee urn, but it had felt filters to strain out excess impurities from the hot finished syrup.
The syrup is 66% sugar and boils at 219º F. The rest is water.
Di said they got about 13-14 litres of syrup from a week’s worth of collecting sap from 150 to 200 taps. The ratio is 40:1 (40 gallons of sap: 1 gallon of syrup). It was a lot of intense work for very little money, so this was just a fun family enterprise for them, not a business.
Finally, we learned about the end-of-season clean-up. There were anywhere from 100 to 250 buckets, lids and spiles to be collected, cleaned and stored until next year.
Di is such a dynamic and entertaining presenter! We could really feel what it was like doing all that work to produce their own maple syrup. To top off her wonderful presentation, she sang us her very own Maple Syrup Song.🎶
