I have many such stories and I promise that I will not monopolize this forum with my stories... So, I invite you to share your stories with the rest of our family... they can be short or long stories... they can be serious or funny and they can be in french or english (I will not translate those in french, they will be left as-is for all to enjoy). As a reminder, we want stories about the Theriault family, either involving a member of the family, or an important family event. The object here is to gather and record Theriault stories and anecdotes...
An old maple shack (sucrerie) of days gone by.
Ricky Theriault (Ino, Denis, Joachim, Joseph; of the Joseph & Théogénie Thériault Great-Branch) let his love for the land grow into a family "affair". His love for nature and outdoors grew into a multi-acre maple grove. Ricky began collecting maple water less than five years ago, up high on Notre Dame Mountain which is located in Lille, Maine, the town he grew up in. This is where our ancestors' roots were formed in the great St. John Valley. This mountain is now baptized as "Terio-ville."
His collection started with 50 cans of maple water and all had to be hand collected nightly and boiled to create a golden syrup. His crew included his aunts, uncles, parents, sister, brother-in-law and wife. His maple shack then was about 10’ x 12’ ...to say the least he was cramped for space. Two years later, he decided that his love for sugaring grew and added on another 150 cans and then he built a 20 x 20’ temporary building. This cabin was covered with sheet metal roofing and a "canvas tarp that wrapped the walls". He lacked nothing that a 1900’s camp would have had but it was sure cold!!
The floor which was gravel was lit up by a gas-powered generator to meet his lighting needs. But it still was not what he was striving for. This past season he decided to grow his 25-acre maple grove into a place that people can venture with their families and enjoy nature’s most golden surprise. Together with my dad his father Ino, they planned a building and began dreaming. Many long days and nights were spent pouring the concrete, framing and enclosing the walls. This "cabin" was definitely built strong and built with Theriault strength and pride. Without the help of his dad, Ino, his uncle Claude & uncle Guy, this "cabin" would still be long from completion.
His maple sugar structure now has a concrete floor measuring 24’ x 32’, with sheet metal roofing (which is green) and four sheet metal walls. It also has a stainless kitchen with stainless steel sinks for washing over 300 cans each year. His large wood boiler stove stands approximately 12’ long and 3’ wide. This boiler will burn about 3 cords of wood during a regular season’s collection. One thousand gallons of maple water can be boiled in this large pot which takes about 8 hours. Eight hours of boil time but hundreds of hours for preparation time. His boiler "technician" would be his uncle, Claude Theriault who has developed a love for this as well. He boils up to twice a day during the best times of the season that is 16 hours of boiling time and about 4 hours to bottle each batch.
His additional 16’ x 16’ out building is the collection house for all the trees that are tapped and piped into the main line for all the maple water. At present, he has 2,500 trees tapped to fill these large tubs. There are 5 large stainless steel tubs in this cabin that can house about 2,000 gallons of maple water. Ricky is currently making maple syrup with no additives, maple butter, taffy and sugar. His advertisement is word of mouth and all the "valley" people look forward to his "golden" recipe.
Ricky’s only child a son, Jacob Eno Theriault is currently 5 months old and you can bet next year at this time he will be daddy’s little helper.
Nicole Theriault Cyr (his big-sister) 29 December 2001
(NOTE: For an excellent introduction to maple syrup production, see Cornell University's website at http://www.dnr.cornell.edu/ext/maple/index.htm)