Keyword Maple Syrup

Video poem about New Hampshire and its foliage in Autumn

Sugaring time marks the end of the Quebec winter, and the traditions associated with this highlight of the year are centered around the sugar shack. The production of maple syrup, as much as the gatherings it causes, has been anchored in Quebec culture for hundreds of years, and the transmission of the know-how it requires is more often than not a story of family. Our meeting with 5 Quebec families producing maple syrup, professionally or artisanally, highlights this tradition which is still evident and lived today. From tapping trees to manufacturing maple products, Oh Sirop is interested in maple growing practices that are part of history, which are passed down and adapted from generation to generation.

Ruth Clarke, a tough, supremely competent middle-aged Canadian maple syrup farmer has had it with being hemmed in by the polite, bureaucratic conventions native to her country’s identity. With the help of Remy Bouchard, a pint-sized local blockhead and an aging Mike Byrne, a low-level mobster, Ruth changes her fate — and transforms the future of her community with the theft of millions of dollars’ worth of maple syrup.