Producers pick up the pieces after Fiona

Six months have past since hurricane Fiona tore through Nova Scotia, and it's now maple syrup season.

This year's flow comes with some challenges as producers deal with the impacts from the storm. With all the downed trees many maple syrup farmers lost part of their livelihood.

Peter MacLean of Dalhousie Maple Products lost about 4,500 trees. MacLean recalled being devastated.

“What made it worse was everything was tipped over,” he said.

It took MacLean and his family about three months to get to a point where they were back up and running, but it will take years to fully clean up the mess that was left behind.

“We’re back to where we were before Fiona, but we were wanting to expand. Now the lack of trees is going to make that hard to happen” MacLean continued.

Darren Noble is another maple syrup farmer who owns Creekside Farm Maple in Blue Mountain. He said cleanup will be an ongoing effort.

"We'll be at it for a while," he said. "It's going to take us years to get over this.”

Noble had about 500 trees tapped for syrup before the hurricane. He estimated this year he will tap around 350400.

“So last fall, we were faced with the choice. Do we clean this up or do we focus on

“We’ll be at it for a while. It’s going to take us years to get over this.” Darren Noble Maple syrup farmer

opening up a new stand on our property and trying to get back into production for 2023.”

Noble chose the latter of the two choices and has been hard at work every day since trying to get ready for their first boil.

One thing Darren wants people to know is that losing these trees isn’t the same as losing a crop that regrows every year.

“The maple trees that we're tapping here are at least 80 years old minimum. If I planted a maple tree today great grandkids who would tap that tree.”

Despite the damper hurricane Fiona may have put on these farmers last fall, they remain hopeful for a successful maple syrup season this year, and in the years to come.

“We’re having fun at it. That's all that matters. It's a labor of love that's for sure.” Noble laughed.

You can watch for updates from both farms on their Facebook pages.