Maple Syrup Festival

Saturday was the world's largest Maple Syrup Festival!  It took place in Emira, Ontario.  Elmira is close to Kitchener, but its closest well-known neighbour is St. Jacob's.  There are lots of Mennonites there who drive their horse and buggy along the side of the road and such.  It's always a nice experience to go there and see their quilts and taste their baked goods and such.

Anyway, back to the festival.  We got there at 8am, and it was already PACKED.  There were tons of people there.  It was also really cold, but luckily I was prepared for the weather and dressed in layers!  It had snowed the night before, so that provided a nice back drop to some of my pictures!

We got to go into the Sugar Bush (which is just a forest with tapped trees) and see the sugar shack!  It was very interesting to see how maple syrup gets from the tree to the bottle.  Then, we explored the festival and finished it off by watching a dog show (indoors where it was relatively warm!)

Here are some pictures!  It was great fun!!

Our ride from the parking lot to the festival

A pancake!

The beginning of the festival.  There were more than 100 vendors!

This was our ride into the sugar bush, which you can see in the background

The sugar shack!

mmmmmmmm.  Maple candy straight from the source!

Lumberjack log cutting contest!

Yes, the whole experience was really fun.  There were lots of things to see and do, and no shortage of maple syrup, that's for sure!  For more info and probably more pictures, you can go to their website by clicking here.

Thanks for reading!