New stamps celebrate Quebec’s sugar shacks

The sweet smell of maple taffy on a fresh bed of snow. The mouth-watering flavours of salty pea soup and tender maple-glazed ham. The strains of a fiddle and the clack of spoons playing a spirited reel. Horse-drawn sleigh rides and singing. The vibrant sights, sounds and scents of the sugaring-off season come to life at sugar shacks across Quebec around springtime. Traditions surrounding the temps des sucres are such an integral part of Québécois culture and identity, they have been designated part of the province’s intangible heritage.

The festive celebrations date back nearly two centuries – but maple syrup itself is far older than that. The Indigenous Peoples of the Eastern Woodlands had been collecting the sap of the sugar maple and boiling it to create delicious syrup and sugar long before European settlements. They shared their knowledge with early French colonists, who adopted and later adapted their methods.