It's almost spring, and the maple sap is running in Kitigan Zibi
First Nation runs its own syrup production company, Awazibi
It's beginning to feel like spring after a deeply cold winter, and that means one thing at Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg's sugarbush.
Thousands of maple trees across 90 hectares of the band's territory just started running Friday.
Maple water from about 16,500 taps is now coursing through 75 kilometres of tubing into a gleaming facility, where it'll be turned to syrup.
The First Nation in western Quebec runs its own maple syrup business, called Awazibi, employing 10 community members on a seasonal basis.
Blythe Commando — who worked at Awazibi for years and is Kitigan Zibi's lead land guardian — says the community decided to develop a commercial sugarbush after the land was cut off from forestry activity.
Blending tradition with technology
"It's ... a way to create jobs within the community and keep the jobs in the community," he told CBC Radio's Ottawa Morning earlier this week.
Raw maple water is about two per cent sugar. A process of reverse osmosis removes some of the water, upping the concentration to about 12 per cent. And that's when the boiling begins.
"It speeds up the boiling time and also saves costs because you're burning less fuel inside the evaporator," Commando says.
The sugarbush is in line with Awazibi's goal of blending tradition with technology, but Commando says he does have a fondness for the old ways.
WATCH | Maple syrup production at Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg underway as spring melt begins
"It was a thing that we did as a family — my grandmothers, my uncles, my parents, cousins, we would all pitch in and help," Commando recalled from his childhood.
"We'd empty the buckets out of the trees into the snowmobile of my uncle. It was a very social event and it was a way for us to gather and practice our traditional activities and just ... keep that tradition alive. Every year we look forward to that maple season just for that."
But the First Nation is proud of its work.
"There's a part of me that always wants to go back to the way we used to do it, because it was just very simple. And it was beautiful, being with your family out on the land. But ... we have a strong pride because the building was built from the hands of our own people, all the workers are our own people," he says.
LISTEN | More of Stu Mills' interview with Blythe Commando
CBC Radio's Ottawa Morning, with files from Stu Mills