Sugaring: A Métis Family Tradition

The spring maple sugar harvest has been an important seasonal Métis community tradition for generations. For many, the annual maple sugar harvest has involved the entire family.

In a late March 1853 journal entry, for example, Mattawa postmaster Colin Rankin noted of the Métis Langevin family that it was “Mme. Langevin and family” who “started out to their sugary”. This built upon earlier entries, including one from early January 1849 in which the Langevin family was noted as “making a camp above the fort”. By April of that year, “Langevin traded 100 lbs of maple sugar” at the Mattawa post.

Métis families on Drummond Island similarly took part in the annual maple sugaring tradition ahead of their community’s relocation to Penetanguishene. Later in her life, for instance, Georgian Bay Métis Community matriarch, Rosette Boucher (nee Larammee), remembered participating in her Métis family’s annual spring maple sugar harvest as a child, recounting, “We left Drummond Island in April, 1828, and were in the sugar camp when some of the others started.”

In nearby Sault Ste. Marie, the spring maple sugar harvest was a particularly important part of the local Métis economy, grounded in the community’s traditional River Lots along the St. Mary’s River, from which, “The half-breeds depend upon fish, from September till sugar-making.”

Every Métis River Lot family had a designated sugar bush along “the hill” at the far end of their River Lot, so that they could participate in the annual maple sugar harvest. As late as 1889, the Miron family were still harvesting sugar on their section of “the hill” decades after most of their Métis community had been displaced by recent settlers.

Many Métis families carry on their community’s annual spring maple sugar harvest tradition to this day.

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