cabane à sucre
The very best thing about teaching is definitely the field trips. Sure, I know a lot of teachers that say that it’s a hassle, taking care of the children and being responsible for knowing where they all are at all times. Some teachers even genuinely dread them.
Me? I love them. When else can you go on cheesy trips, without being embarrassed about it? Oh yea, when you have kids of your own. Okay, well if you don’t have kids, then taking field trips are actually a lot of fun.
And being a sub, I got to go to a cabane à sucre yesterday. Just North of downtown Montreal, only 45 minutes away, there were a few all in a row. The one we went to was called “La Villa du Sirop”.
They greeted us with some Québecois folk songs and a play, which included a reenactment of how the Aboriginals discovered maple syrup, by boiling sap. They were using this big old pot as a joke, but my mom actually has 4 like these and bigger still sitting in their basement.
And then we were off to see the inner workings of how they make maple syrup. They don’t actually use spouts and buckets anymore, but they left some around to show us.
Finally, it was time to eat! Most of the traditional Québecois foods contain pork and pork products, like pork rinds, ham with maple syrup, pork sausages with maple syrup, and beans with lard. But I still managed to find some good foods to eat, like eggs with maple syrup (yum!), fried potatoes, boiled potatoes, pickles, and of course, pancakes with maple syrup. I was too hungry to take any pictures of the food, but I did manage to remember at the very last piece of pancake. Meh, mine are better.
And just when we were about to leave, they surprised us with a little treat, maple taffy, or as they call it “la tire”. It’s hot maple syrup that gets poured onto ice and then rolled onto a popsicle stick. It’s chewy and melty and oh so delicious.
I was disappointed by a couple of things. First, they didn’t show us the forest and how it’s all a “mess of tubes”, as they describe it, because of how they extract the sap from the trees. I had thought that that’s the whole point of the trip, but alas, it wasn’t in their schedule. Second, they had no gift shop. Here I was, with freshly withdrawn cash in my wallet, only to find nothing to buy. I had to look very hard to find a bottle of maple syrup and a couple of maple fudge leaves. I think there’s more maple syrup products at the gift shop right across the street.
Other than that, I had a lot of fun, and it was definitely not something Omar and I would’ve done by ourselves. Sometimes, it’s okay being a teacher.
Champion of 2009 Battle of the Blades: Jamie Salé and Craig Simpson!