Two Quesnel farmers pioneer the art of making Birch syrup

Two Quesnel farmers are savoring the sweet smell of success - making syrup from birch trees. Using a process similar to maple syrup harvesters, Kim McIvor and Pete Thumand of Birch Place Farm in Marguerite, just south of Quesnel, may just have the hottest new food around.

Making birch syrup is not new. Many old timers and outdoors people in the Cariboo might draw a bucket or two and boil it down for their own use. But you won't find it in stores. Pete says he's done a bit of research on the subject and discovered that in 1975 three McGill University horticulture professors tried to make birch syrup as a thesis topic, but failed. They said it was not fit to make.

But Pete discovered that birch syrup is quite common in Russia, and that Russians also make other birch drinks out of the sap as well.

Pete says he got the idea for brewing sap from an old cowboy in Alberta who, during the Second World War, couldn't get sugar to sweeten his coffee and decided to draw some birch sap.

Pete and Kim have some large, beautiful birch trees on their farm so they thought they would give it a try. They ordered a mail order beginner's maple syrup kit and adapted it for the birch trees.

"The first evaporator I built myself," says Pete. "I bought a maple syrup evaporator and adapted it."

This wasn't as easy as it sounds, he says.

"We worked for three years and made some awful stuff. It was gross. But half-way through the season, Bingo! I knew what I was doing."

Timing is everything when it comes to making birch syrup. The sap starts to run around the beginning of March. Mature trees are drilled and tapped, then a spike is inserted from which a bucket hangs. Tapping the tree does not hurt it. A cork is inserted at the end of the season to seal the hole. The sap must be drawn before the buds come on the trees, otherwise it tastes bitter. Once the sap is drawn you must begin to make the syrup within 24 hours or it will ferment

The sap is boiled in a wood-fired, stainless steel evaporator. An average tree produces three to five gallons of sap per day. The sap runs for three to four weeks and it takes 80 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. The finished product has a delicate caramel taste and is made up of two sugars - fructose and glucose. The syrup is good on pancakes or on ice cream, and can also be used as glaze for ham, carrots or yams.

Once Pete and Kim had perfected their syrup, public interest was instantaneous. At one craft fair, 150 people lined up in four hours to buy it.

"We have never looked back. We can't keep up to the demand," says Pete.

Kim adds that one of the best things about developing and marketing the syrup has been the new people they've met.

As time went on, they got a new evaporator--paid for in part by a loan from Community Futures in Quesnel, which considers Birch Place Farm a definite success story.

Selling the syrup has been a lucrative sideline to their farm where they also raise Dorset sheep, Percheron horses, and have blue heeler dogs, emus, peacocks, rabbits, chickens, Guinea fowl and a "guard llama."

He and Kim aim for complete independence. They have also initiated Farm Circle Tours which includes their own farm and others.

Success with Sugar Spring Classic birch syrup may help them on their way to their dream of self-sufficiency. In addition to selling at farmers' markets and craft fairs, they've also got people now coming to Birch Place Farm specifically to get the syrup. And word is getting around.

"I got a call from New Hampshire this morning," says Pete.

Somebody had given a US relative a bottle of the syrup as a gift and they called Pete and Kim to ask for more.

The demand is definitely there, says Kim.

"We're getting calls from health food stores and distributors," Pete adds.

But the next phase of their business has to be carefully thought out. Distribution is tricky.

Postage is a killer if they ever wanted to do mail orders - it costs $4.15 to mail one bottle, says Pete.

"We could just jump in, but I'm nervous," says Pete. "We're already suffering extreme growing pains."

Pete has been asked by Agriculture Canada to write a booklet on how to make birch syrup, but he's holding off until he feels the system he's developed has been perfected.

"We live fairly simply," he says. "We're having fun with it."

(Susan Smith is a freelance writer in Quesnel.)

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