Yesterday I was ble to make it out to a REAL Cabane à sucre and it was formidable! So long as the rain stays away we are headed for a hike tomorrow to the national Parc de Jacques-Cartier. Thus I thought it would be a good idea to start posting pictures today:)
This was a a little cabin that 'les bûcherons' slept in during the winter while they hunted for pelts. It was a super tiny room but the coolest part was their beds. They had bunk beds and used only tree branches for mattresses that lasted months! Then they used only different animal pellets for blankets...hence the bear!
Another really awesome feature of the house was the roof. Even though they were log cabins built just before they were used, the roof was deisgned to be completely water proof if you can tell from this shot...
This is the roof of the sugar shack or 'le cabane à sucre'. There are hidden shutters on the roof that open to allow all the steam to escape when they boil the maple sap.
Since the traditionnal way of collecting the tree sap can be very tedious, a large majority of the trees are now all connected by a specific tube system that carries the sap from the trees directly into the collection tank so that the workers do not have to snow shoe outside to collect all the buckets. Below are the large vats that boil the sap unitl it becomes syrop. ( FYI 1L syrop = 40L sap!)
Maple Tress!!
This is th emain hall where we had dinner and danced. The front entrance also served as a little museum of sorts to display various tools and furniture that were in tradtional colonial Quebec homes.
Just a huge bison mounted on the wall. No big deal.
A two man folk band played for the night and they were actually amazing! Along the bench in front of them were wooden spoons for every to play if they so choosed.
I know it snot necessarily a deer, but I thought you'd be happy anyways Paul!
People started to dance almost as soon as we got there. You would have thought it was much later in the night consdering how wild they were! (Yes that is a bar where there is a crowd right next to the dancefloor in the right hand corner.)
The first brave spoon players!
This guy was amazing! He played guitar, spoons, harmonica and sang in both english and french. Almost a one man act woot woot!
This may not like like the most amazing meal ever but I promise it was delicious!! Every form of sugar or fat was on that plate which included maple glazed ham, sausages, baked beans, potatoes, and tortière (a sort of meat and cinammon pie) all drenched in maple syrop...oh it was perfect! Oh an dI almost forgot. We were served split pea soup with home made bread just before this that was also very scrumptious!
There were crêpes on this plate but I defs forgot to take a picture/devoured them...
After dinner was finished and plates were cleared, everyone was gathered for some tradtional dances. The singer would yell various directions for you to do and you just went along with your partner as best as you could. It was incredibly entertaining to watch!
A little blury but below is 'la tyre'. I did say that we had every form of sugar right? Well this is the liquid form drizzled hot onto compacted snow then once it freezes you roll it on to a stick and eat as quick as you can before it melts again all over your hand.
YUM!
SO there is the super condensed version of cabane à sucre! Absolutely amazing and can you believe it? All for only $20!!! Hopefully I will have pictures form tomorrow's hike up tomorrow sometime this weekend....
À la prochaine!
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