Langley residents and visitors had the chance to try maple taffy at the 14th annual Vive les Voyageurs Festival at the Fort Langley National Historic Site on Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 20 and 21.
Patrick Demers packed some snow onto a wooden board and poured freshly boiled maple sap in a long line. Then, he rolls it up onto a Popsicle stick to serve.
“It’s the oldest tradition we have – it’s definitely the original Canadian candy,” he said.
Demers owns Maples Sugar Shack on Granville Island, but volunteered for the festival to share the tradition from his homeland on the East Coast.
Once a year, provinces in the east will tap the sugar maple in the springtime and harvest the sap.
“It’s very perishable. The sap has to be boiled down fairly quickly, it’ll begin rotting within 24-hours of being outside,” he explained.
Demers moved to B.C. in the 1990s, but he’s originally from Ontario, where he got his sugaring experience on his uncle’s small farm on St. Joseph’s Island – located on the Canada-U.S. border in southwest Ontario and north of Michigan.
“We have this tradition called the ‘Sugaring Off Party’ which is done at every sugar shack back east… as a kid I thought they did this everywhere in the world, I didn’t realize how unique it was,” Demers shared.
Making the maple taffy on snow at the festival was how his uncle was paid for harvesting the sap.
“It’s a pretty big cultural tradition in the springtime, and anyone in Canada should experience it once.”
He said that he truly came to appreciate the tradition after he moved to B.C. and learned the tradition wasn’t practiced here. Inspired, he started his own sugar shack on Granville Island. Ever since, Demers has attended farmers markets across the Lower Mainland and up the Sea-to-Sky Highway to Whistler.
“As soon as I started doing it at the farmers markets I could see how special it was, because its the first time for the majority of people. When you see a kid make their first one and they taste it, it’s pretty cool. You always remember your first one. I feel very fortunate because I feel like every weekend I can recreate that experience,” Demers said.
While there is French-Canadian history and tradition to the maple taffy, Demers noted that it was first practised by First Nations who harvested the sap and made maple sugar.
“It was vital to their survival,” he said.
The taffy has 10 per cent of daily calcium intake, and more potassium than bananas, Dremers told a visiting Australian who tried the treat for the first time.
Maple taffy was just one of the demonstrations at the Vive les Voyageaurs Festival. Daily activities included beaver trapping techniques, traditional musical performances, blacksmith demonstrations, among many others.
The festival is an opportunity for visitors to discover Francophone culture and practise speaking French, explained Nancy Hildebrand, public relations officer with Parks Canada.
“Voyageurs transported furs between Fort Langley and other remote outposts, and also served as language interpreters for the fort’s trading activities,” she said.
The Fort saw 320 visitors during the two-day festival period, a decline from last year’s 900.
Parks Canada has been hosting this festival since 2010 and have seen it grow into a winter favourite for many families, Hildebrand added.
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