#sugarbush

Spring in southern Ontario came in slowly, but the sugarbush always knew before anyone else did. The ground was soft underfoot, the maple trees bare and silver in the afternoon light, and the air carried that mix of damp earth, wood smoke, and something sweet boiling somewhere deeper in the bush. It was the kind of place that looked ordinary until the light hit it right.

This one belonged to Wells’ uncle.

He’d come out for a couple of days to help with the season just long enough to lend a hand, get out of the city and long enough to be away from Coach to give him some time and space to think about the job offer he was struggling to make a decision about. Wells came to do the kind of work that came around every spring whether anyone at his Uncle's farm felt ready for it or not. Carrying sap pails, checking lines, hauling split wood to the sugar shack, moving between the trees in worn jeans, muddy boots, and a flannel shirt hanging open over a fitted white tank that clung more by the hour. Wells looked very right in the middle of it.

That was the problem.

Something about Wells in a southern Ontario sugarbush made the whole thing more distracting than it had any right to be. Maybe it was the broad shoulders between the maples. Maybe it was the way the tank held close at the chest once the work got going, or how the mud on his boots and the dust on his jeans only made him look better instead of rougher. Maybe it was just the fact that Wells could make actual physical labor look far too good without even seeming to try.

By late afternoon, the sugar shack had become the center of everything: steam rolling out into the cool air, the windows glowing, the evaporator running hot, and Wells stepping in and out of it with his sleeves shoved up and the scent of smoke and maple all over him. His uncle might have been focused on the sap, the fire, and the timing of the boil, but Wells had become his own kind of problem — warm from the work, forearms tight from carrying full pails, and just smug enough to know the setting suited him.

And it really did.

Every time he stopped at the woodpile to catch his breath, every time he stood in the shack doorway with steam curling behind him and the last of the light catching on his face, he looked like he’d wandered into the most flattering version of rural Ontario imaginable. The whole sugarbush glowed by then, wet ground, bare branches, golden light slipping through the trees, and Wells stood right in the middle of it like spring had decided to build itself around him.

He said he was only there to help his uncle for a couple of days.

That was technically true.

But by the end of the afternoon, with the woods turning gold, the syrup still running, and smoke and sweetness clinging to his shirt, Wells had turned a simple visit to the family sugarbush into something a little harder to ignore.

The sweetest part of the property was supposed to be what was boiling inside the shack.

By sunset, that was at least debatable.

Red Sugarbush

This red sugarbush (Protea repens) was beautifully illustrated by Arabella Roupell (1817-1914) for her Specimens of the Flora of South Africa (1849).

View more flora posts and illustrations.

View more Women in HistSciArt posts and illustrations.

“A sap-run is the sweet good-by of winter. It is the fruit of the equal marriage of the sun and frost.” 

Blessing of the Maples by Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Côté, 1914

Blessing of the Sugar Bush by Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté, 1914

Text from: https://www.klinkhoff.ca/fr/viewing-room/57/works/artworks-9937-marc-aurele-suzor-cote-benediction-des-erables-blessing-of-the-maples-sketch-1914-circa/

The tradition of blessing maple sugar bushes—although not well documented—was said to have been practised in the Eastern Townships (Le Terroir, March 11, 1919, pp. 26–27). We have not found any evidence of such ceremonies in Arthabaska, despite the many maple groves in the area. Suzor-Coté was captivated by these forests, which were abundant in the region. His art also depicted sugar shacks, one belonging to Nathée Blanchette, the other to his friend Harry Norton, which was located on Edgewater farm.

Suzor-Coté titled the painting La Bénédiction des érables, vieille coutume canadienne-française disparue, which was featured at the 42nd Royal Canadian Academy of Arts exhibit, held at the Art Association of Montreal in November 1920. The title suggests that he never witnessed the extinct custom, which he depicted in great splendour.

The priest, dressed in a glittering gold and embroidered cope, is flanked by an altar boy and a man carrying a processional cross. He is praying to Providence that the trees will produce an abundance of sap that will be made into maple syrup, taffy and sugar.

In The Year Book of Canadian Art 1913, Lintern Sibley commented on this unfinished composition while it was still in the studio, recalling the painter’s words:

Nothing enthuses him [Suzor-Coté] like his own ancestral country and the old customs of his race (term used) — now, alas, falling, many of them, into disuse. At this writing he is engaged in painting a huge picture depicting one of these of customs — the blessing of the maple sugar bush. It used to be the custom when the last snow disappearing for the curé to head a ceremonial procession round the woods where the sugar maple grew, sprinkling the trees on the way with holy water, reciting liturgies, and praying that there might be a good crop of sugar and syrup.

‘People nowadays call that superstition,’ says Suzor-Coté. ‘But there is something big in the idea. It links up daily works and divine; it is a recognition of a Power that is greater than man, a recognition of the Source of All. Such a ceremony is ennobling and reverential. It is big, and it makes me feel. And when I feel, then I can paint. That is the great thing — to have a feeling. And always when I am in my own country, and among my own people, I have feeling and inspiration.’

The large artwork, exhibited in 1920 and now owned by the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (1934.13), was painted by Suzor-Coté in close collaboration with his pupil, Rodolphe Duguay, as the latter mentioned in his journal.

This sketch is one of the many studies that Suzor-Coté created prior to painting the massive historical composition, including a preparatory pastel work (private collection and oil study, MMFA). There are significant variations from the final painting, such as the absence of the altar boy carrying the stoup and the cross-bearer being pushed to the background. This first draft set the scene in a dense forest where the trees were already tapped, and buckets were hung to collect maple water. In the final version, the buckets are replaced by flat containers on the ground.

The dense crowd of parishioners meld with the maple grove’s dark background, which contrasts with the priest’s clothes, the light reflected on the tree trunks and the white snow, on which dropped shadows indicate that the ceremony was held early in the morning.