BACKYARD
BACK TO THE SHACK A ski-propelled reconnection with family, tradition and le grand pic words :: Feet Banks // photos :: Aga Iwanicka March 2021. Ontario snow resorts are back open and shred season is holding steady, pushing back against spring’s inevitable approach. Most years, or at least most non-COVID years, thousands of Ontarians would have booked their tickets to B.C. for their annual real-mountain injection. And B.C.-based pros like Marie-Pier Préfontaine would generally be planning local missions to big lines that have finally filled in, booking tickets to Alaska or shredding pillow lines amongst the towering coniferous coastal rainforests. Instead, with international travel banned, MP heads east—to the spaced-out maple forests of Sainte-Adèle, Quebec, hauling fivegallon buckets of sugary maple water without spilling a drop. March is maple syrup season, and MP has returned to the homeland to help her 86-year-old grandfather at the sugar shack.
“It wasn’t a hard decision,” MP says. “The sugar shack is the most relaxing place in the world for me. Yes, March has great skiing but it’s just skiing. I love to spend time with my grandpa each year, working with him in the forest and watching the birds. Especially with the pandemic happening and the uncertainty, I felt it was really important to put my family first.” Grandpa Pierre Préfontaine has been working his maple forests since 2002. Throughout the year, he makes almost daily voyages out to the 16 x 16-foot wooden cabin with wood heat, no insulation, the requisite set of moose antlers nailed to the wall and the boiler system needed to transform the sap from hundreds of maple trees into a traditional eastern Canadian delicacy—pure maple syrup. March is the best month to harvest because air temperatures begin to rise in the daytime but still drop below freezing at night to create pressure that pushes the sap out of the trees. 69
