Osler’s sweet surprise: Made in Saskatchewan maple syrup

OSLER, SASK. — Most of us picture maple syrup coming from Quebec or Ontario, and not from a backyard on the prairies.

But that’s exactly where this story begins.

“People are surprised when we say we make it right here in Osler,” Josh Wiebe said with a smile, holding up a bottle of rich, golden syrup.

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A little heat, time and patience turn watery sap into a thick, golden syrup. (Josh Wiebe/Submitted)

Inside a large greenhouse behind his home, a wood stove burns steadily.

A wide metal pan sits above it, steam rolling upward in slow, constant waves as sap from nearby trees begins to transform. This is maple syrup — made right here in Saskatchewan.

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“The whole process is just to concentrate the sugar that’s in there,” Wiebe explained. “You’re boiling the water off. You’re going from two-to-four per cent sugar in the sap to 66 per cent in syrup.”

Wiebe sells his syrup locally at a farmer’s market in Osler, and through Facebook. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)

There’s nothing added. Nothing artificial. Just heat, time and patience.

And the process doesn’t start in the cozy, wood-warmed greenhouse. It starts in the cold.

Josh Wiebe says making syrup takes a lot of time, and a lot of firewood, as the process requires consistent heat. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)

Before the boil, Wiebe is out in frozen yards and shelterbelts, moving through snow that still hasn’t fully released its grip, tapping the Manitoba maple trees most people would never think twice about.

They produce a thinner, less concentrated sap than sugar maples, but it’s still enough to boil down into syrup.

“My uncle, he always tapped a few trees in his yard,” Wiebe recalled. “I always thought it was just cool.”

Wiebe said the many cold snaps Saskatchewan has experienced this spring are throwing a bit of a wrench into his syrup-making process. (Josh Wiebe/Submitted)

That early curiosity turned into an annual routine for Wiebe, although it can often be hard to predict how a season will develop.

“This year has felt weird,” Wiebe said. “Some years I’ve started last week of March, and this year I had a little bit of dripping in March, and then a cold spell.”

Wiebe and his wife track their syrup making in the same way many farmers track seeding, harvest or calving: in a trusty notebook they can look back on with each passing year. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)

When the conditions are right, when nights still freeze but days start to soften, the trees begin to wake up. That’s when Weibe moves. Taps go in. Buckets are set out. Some days there’s a steady run. Other days, nothing at all.

Sap has to be gathered, hauled and stored cold to ensure it doesn’t spoil before there’s enough to boil down into a batch of syrup.

Before boiling, the sap looks just like water. Wiebe said raw sap typically only has a sugar concentration of about two-to-four per cent. After boiling, he’s left with a syrup containing roughly 66 per cent sugar. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)

“On a normal year, when it’s warm outside, I would collect it in four-gallon buckets and then dump it into a barrel,” he said. “Then I’d be cycling pails through the freezer to just keep on putting ice in the barrel until I can boil it.”

Normally, there’s only about a week before the sap turns.

Wiebe said his least-favourite part of the process are the many, many filtering sessions required to produce high-quality syrup. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)

Everything is measured in accumulation. Gallons gathered, barrels filled, waiting for the moment there’s enough to justify the firewood and time needed to turn it into syrup.

An average year might bring in 200 to 250 gallons of sap. Last year, Wiebe said he pushed 285 gallons through the system.

Some batches move quickly, while others stretch on for hours.

Before being added to the boiling pan, the sap is preheated above the stove. A copper tube runs the liquid around the wood stove’s steam pipe, ensuring any sap being added to the pan won’t drastically drop the temperature of the liquid. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)

“My longest time is 48 hours straight,” he said.

After all of that hard work — the tapping, the hauling, the waiting, the careful watching — it finally becomes something people recognize. Something simple. Something familiar. But not always the same.

New pails of sap are added one at a time, fed into the boiling pan through a copper tubing system. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)

Some batches pour light and clear, while others are thicker and darker, ranging from amber to deep brown.

“The reason you get different colours of syrup is dependent on your boil time,” Wiebe explained. “And your boil time is dependent on how much you’re boiling and how much sugar is in your sap.”

Wiebe explained that his method of making syrup is more of an art than a science. You can tell the boil is nearly finished when the liquid becomes more viscous and begins to change colour. (Josh Wiebe/Submitted)

Depending on the batch, the flavour also shifts. Some lighter runs carry a more delicate sweetness, while darker boils develop a richer profile, almost like caramel.

In the end, the hundreds of gallons of sap collected become only a few gallons of syrup. Last year’s 285-gallon yield of sap resulted in less than seven gallons of finished syrup.

Wiebe said that as it gets later in the season, the syrup changes in both colour and flavour. Early taps produce a lighter syrup due to a higher concentration of sugar. (Josh Wiebe/Submitted)

It doesn’t sound like much after everything that goes into it, but it’s far more than one family could ever use.

Wiebe bottles it and sells it through Facebook and at a local farmers’ market.

He said people at the market are often surprised to learn maple syrup is being made in Osler, Saskatchewan, a place most would never think to look.

Wiebe has taps placed in a few locations near his home in Osler, Saskatchewan. (Josh Wiebe/Submitted)

But ask Josh Wiebe, and he’ll tell you that sometimes, the best things are right in your own backyard.

Think maple syrup only comes from Quebec or Ontario? Think again. In Osler, Josh Wiebe is boiling sap from Manitoba maple trees into delicious syrup, right here on the prairies. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)