Sweet Celebration with CVC’s Maple Syrup fest

March 26, 2026 · 0 Comments

By Riley Murphy

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Running from March 19 – 22, and March 28 – 29, is Credit Valley Conservation’s (CVC) annual Maple Syrup in the Park Festival.

This sweet event invites the community to partake and experience the longstanding tradition of maple syrup production.

At the festival, held at Terra Cotta Conservation Area, families can enjoy live demonstrations, activities, wagon rides, and get an up-close view of their sugar bush.

For those with a sweet tooth, there is also the opportunity to try real maple syrup on site, complete with a pancake breakfast.

The opportunities for learning at the festival are endless. CVC holds sessions to learn about possible ways Indigenous Peoples may have made syrup and sugar from maple sap, as well as the chance to watch historical demonstrations of how settlers made maple syrup.

Attendees can also see a traditional sweat lodge (Madoodiswan), learn how Indigenous Peoples honour Mother Earth’s sacred connection to healing, and listen to traditional helpers (Oshkaabewis) as a fire keeper shares stories and songs that reflect responsibilities to the land.

That’s not all: provided was the chance to hike the Sap Bucket Trail to the sugarbush to watch sap being collected from sugar maple trees, and to visit the sugar shack to learn how maple syrup is made using modern techniques.

One of the available education stations was the evaporation station at the sugar shack.

The evaporation process for maple syrup involves boiling raw maple sap to remove water, concentrating it to a much higher sugar percentage.

CVC was on-site to showcase the true work that goes into each maple syrup bottle.

CVC Crew Member at Terra Cotta Riley MacArthur was working the Maple Syrup Festival for the first time this year, but is no stranger to the festival itself.

“I remember going to it as a kid, even here at Terra Cotta. It’s really cool to circle back and come and do it and be on the other side of the fence and get to educate,” says MacArthur. “That is my favourite part about our Maple Syrup Festival, is the education part of it, seeing all the young kids come up and raise their hands, asking questions.”

The station itself, she laughed, was a little daunting, taking on keeping consistent temperatures and the boiling process, but worth it when they drain it off and get to try their hard work.

“It’s such a candid Canadian kid experience to go see maple syrup at the Sugarbush,” she says.

Sandy Camplin, CVC’s conservation parks senior coordinator, says they’ve been running the festival at Terra Cotta Conservation Area for more than 10 years.

She says not only is it a popular event in the community, but they also get to bring a lot of new people to the conservation area and showcase what conservation areas have to offer.

“For maple syrup itself, it’s a Canadian tradition that everyone should at least take part in or get an opportunity to take part in,” adds Camplin.

The festival also gives them the chance to discuss conservation efforts.

“We try to incorporate some of those nature pieces and conservation pieces, talking about climate change and the differences that we might see in the future from maple syrup,” explains Camplin. “Just trying to encompass that whole time frame when maple syrup started to be something to now”

As well as incorporating something for everyone, she says, giving kids an opportunity to try tools and bringing out traditional art that they may not see anywhere else, on top of games and other attractions for young ones not quite ready to take on the educational aspects.

In the past few years, she explains, they have made an effort to involve and include Indigenous partners in the festival.

As part of their ongoing efforts to develop the Credit Valley trail, they have a partnership with Indigenous communities.

“With that we have an Indigenous roundtable, a group that we go to, to work with and make some decisions with. That’s become a really big part of Credit Valley, and then, in parks, however we can, so now that we’ve built that relationship, how else can we grow that relationship?” says Camplin.

As Indigenous groups are growing an education component for the community, CVC hopes to provide them with the platform to do so, she says, including events like their maple syrup in the Park Festival, where people are interested and asking questions.

On March 22, Grandmother Kim Wheatley joined the celebration to hold ancestral storytelling sessions for the community, where participants could explore traditional Anishinaabe teachings through stories shared during this seasonal cycle of maple syrup harvesting.

“Maple syrup comes from my people, but not many people associate it with us,” says Wheatley. “For my Anishinaabe ancestors, this was the time when we came together. When we not only shared the practice and the how-tos, but the different ways in which this would be applied, and to honor the spirit of the gift, because those trees that this beautiful sweet water comes from is a living being, and one that is so important.”

It is a holistic engagement in which they make offerings, sing songs, offer medicines, and give thanks with their words, emotions, and spirits, she says.

Maple syrup is used in numerous ways, she says, including as medicine, a sweetener, or an indulgent treat.

Coming to the festival that day and share stories and teachings was everything to her, she says.

“The invitation to embrace restorative practices to really support the healing of a targeted group of people in this country who experienced cultural genocide, it’s everything for me,” says Wheatley. “I’m still here. I’m still alive. I’m still able to transmit and share the wisdom and knowledge of our ancestors, whole and complete.

“I’m able to connect to my own personal sense of healing and contribution by validating what I carry and how to do that in a good way with kindness and love and respect, and to feel the receptivity of the audience,” she adds.

Wheatley says the people who come to these kinds of gatherings and festivals not only want to learn, but also open themselves to learning in a multiplicity of ways.

“Storytelling and song is one of the most powerful, universal languages on earth,” she says, “And that’s what I did this past weekend. I sang, I told stories that we tell in a seasonally appropriate time, and invited a little Q&A. But, really [I] felt present and honoured to be the voice that was heard.”

She has been to the festival prior, but says every time is a different experience.

“I never take for granted the opportunity to hold space, because I don’t just get to be Grandmother Kim, I represent all Indigenous people, if you’ve never met us or heard our stories before. I get to stretch what you have been taught,” she says. “Telling stories is not only a great joy; it’s a nudge and reminder that I carry the ancestral responsibility of my people. Which is to remind people how to be in the right relationship with the land, and if it’s through maple syrup and tapping trees, so be it. It’s a rich, rich, rich experience for me.”

Wheatley hopes to challenge “historic amnesia,” and wants all Canadians to embrace the “under-tapped resource of our living presentness now.”

What better way, she says, than by telling stories and singing.

Part of her storytelling session was a smudging ceremony.

“Our storytelling is always interconnected with our cultural practices and values, and smudging is a kindness. If we’re going to engage in a good way, I need to prepare you,” she explains.

“For some it may be rare, new, unusual, but at least we are offering, from our hearts to your hearts, a way to connect beyond just the stories and the songs.”

She adds she wants to invite people to come and sit when opportunities arise.

“You never know what you’re going to get. You never know how connected you might feel as a result of, but to know that we’re still here thriving and surviving. We are not a disappearing race, and our culture is not forgotten.”

The festival will continue on March 28 and 29, with a full schedule of activities posted on CVC’s website.