By: David Deschesne

Fort Fairfield Journal, April 1, 2015

While Global Warming may not be happening in Maine yet, maple sugar shacks across the State still participated in the annual pancake breakfast, but using up stock from last year’s harvest.

Salmon Brook Valley's maple shack, owned by Roger and Joan Connolly in Perham, hosted a pancake lunch on both Saturday and Sunday. “We do Saturday and Sunday. We feed pancakes, warm maple syrup, baked beans. Visitors can see the boiling process and look at the woods and the lines,” said Joan Connolly. “We're not tapped yet. We have a store here and they can come in and buy maple syrup, maple butter, different maple products.”

The Connollys have been making maple syrup for 19 years, a process that traditionally involves the entire family. “Our open house, we've only been doing about five or six years,” said the Connolly's daughter, Jeannie Snyder. “The crowd is different every year. We have some regulars then we have a lot of new people.

It's pretty much about the same amount of people.”

Jeannie says due to the cold temperatures the sap hasn't begun to flow yet. “We're just waiting for Spring, spring's a little late this year.” As of the Maple Weekend, no other producers in the State were tapped in, either.

“When the days are warm, the trees get warmer, they'll start releasing their sap and that's when it starts to run. It just hasn't been warm enough yet to let it go.”

The largest amount of syrup Salmon Brook Valley has produced in a season was 600 gallons.

Salmon Brook Valley was originally set up to gravity feed the sap downhill. “We do have a suction pump now that will bring it down the hill for us so it's not all set to come downhill but it will all be brought downhill. There are smaller lines that dump into a bigger line that dump into an even bigger line and that brings it all into the camp.”