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Quebec · maple atlas

Maple sugaring in Le Haut-Saint-Laurent, Quebec

Le Haut-Saint-Laurent is a regional county municipality (MRC) in Quebec. Statistics Canada's 2021 Census of Agriculture counted 168 farms reporting maple taps and 834,590 taps here. Around Ormstown, sap usually runs from March 6 to April 14. Here's the long-run pattern, 35 seasons of sap weather, and the outlook this week.
Too early to tapAbout 150 days until the usual start.
Sap starts
Mar 6
producers' record
Season ends
Apr 14
about 6 weeks
Sap days / season
27.7
1991–2025 average
Taps, 2021
834,590
#17 of 61 in QC

Sap-flow outlook at Ormstown right now

Full Quebec forecast →

Forecast for Ormstown, QC

Updated Oct 7, 11:30 AM EDT

Off-season for now. Sap needs freezing nights, and none are in sight. Le Haut-Saint-Laurent's season usually opens around March 6, which is 150 days away.

No freeze-thaw days in the forecast

freeze thaw 0 °C

  1. ThuOct 8
    12° / 16°
    No refreeze forecast
  2. FriOct 9
    8° / 14°
    No refreeze forecast
  3. SatOct 10
    2° / 14°
    No refreeze forecast
  4. SunOct 11
    7° / 24°
    No refreeze forecast
  5. MonOct 12
    13° / 18°
    No refreeze forecast
  6. TueOct 13
    11° / 15°
    No refreeze forecast

Data: Environment and Climate Change Canada. Verdicts use freeze-thaw thresholds from maple field research; your woods may run a little differently.

When the sap runs

The sugaring calendar at Ormstown

Freeze-thaw weather at Ormstown peaks in the weeks of Mar 9 to Apr 13, which hold about 46% of a season's sap days. March is the busiest month. Typical dates are anchored to producers' reported season in the region (Houle et al. 2015, 1999–2011): this division's weather signals, moved 6.8 days earlier for the opening and 1.4 for the closing, the average gap to that record. The spread and the year-by-year bars below are the unadjusted weather signal.
Typical season: Mar 6 – Apr 140246Week of Dec 1: 1.1 sap days on averageWeek of Dec 8: 1.3 sap days on averageWeek of Dec 15: 0.9 sap days on averageWeek of Dec 22: 0.9 sap days on averageWeek of Dec 29: 0.8 sap days on averageWeek of Jan 5: 0.7 sap days on averageWeek of Jan 12: 0.6 sap days on averageWeek of Jan 19: 0.7 sap days on averageWeek of Jan 26: 0.5 sap days on averageWeek of Feb 2: 0.8 sap days on averageWeek of Feb 9: 0.9 sap days on averageWeek of Feb 16: 1.0 sap days on averageWeek of Feb 23: 1.2 sap days on averageWeek of Mar 2: 1.4 sap days on averageWeek of Mar 9: 1.8 sap days on averageWeek of Mar 16: 1.9 sap days on averageWeek of Mar 23: 2.5 sap days on averageWeek of Mar 30: 2.6 sap days on averageWeek of Apr 6: 2.4 sap days on averageWeek of Apr 13: 1.6 sap days on averageWeek of Apr 20: 1.1 sap days on averageWeek of Apr 27: 0.6 sap days on averageWeek of May 4: 0.1 sap days on averageWeek of May 11: 0.2 sap days on averageWeek of May 18: 0.0 sap days on averageWeek of May 25: 0.0 sap days on averageDecJanFebMarAprMaytaps in ~Mar 6
Average number of freeze-thaw sap days in each week of the season at Ormstown, 1991–2025 (Daymet temperatures). A sap day is an overnight low under −1 °C (30.2 °F) followed by an afternoon high over +3 °C (37.4 °F). The shaded band is the typical season.

Year-to-year spread

Opening signal
Median Mar 13; the middle half of seasons fell between Mar 8 and Mar 18. Earliest Feb 16 (2012), latest Mar 31 (1992).
Closing signal
Median Apr 15; middle half between Apr 7 and Apr 17. Earliest Mar 12 (2012), latest Apr 23 (1994).
Sap days by month
Dec16%Jan11%Feb14%Mar31%Apr27%May1%

35 seasons of sap weather

Le Haut-Saint-Laurent seasons, 1991–2025

The best sap year at Ormstown was 2016 with 42 freeze-thaw days; the leanest was 2010 with 18. Seasons that start early tend to end early too: the trees run on the swing between freezing nights and mild days, and heat ends it.
JanFebMarAprMaysap days20252025: Mar 9 – Apr 10, 27 sap days2720242024: Feb 25 – Mar 31, 33 sap days3320232023: Mar 10 – Apr 9, 34 sap days3420222022: Mar 8 – Apr 5, 32 sap days3220212021: Mar 3 – Apr 3, 25 sap days2520202020: Mar 3 – Apr 7, 42 sap days4220192019: Mar 18 – Apr 11, 27 sap days2720182018: Mar 21 – Apr 23, 33 sap days3320172017: Mar 7 – Apr 3, 22 sap days2220162016: Mar 12 – Apr 16, 42 sap days4220152015: Mar 18 – Apr 19, 19 sap days1920142014: Mar 18 – Apr 20, 22 sap days2220132013: Mar 14 – Apr 15, 35 sap days3520122012: Feb 16 – Mar 12, 36 sap days3620112011: Mar 13 – Apr 16, 21 sap days2120102010: Mar 2 – Mar 28, 18 sap days1820092009: Mar 14 – Apr 16, 28 sap days2820082008: Mar 16 – Apr 16, 21 sap days2120072007: Mar 24 – Apr 11, 23 sap days2320062006: Mar 6 – Apr 9, 27 sap days2720052005: Mar 14 – Apr 16, 28 sap days2820042004: Mar 16 – Apr 17, 27 sap days2720032003: Mar 17 – Apr 18, 20 sap days2020022002: Mar 10 – Apr 7, 27 sap days2720012001: Mar 21 – Apr 19, 23 sap days2320002000: Feb 26 – Mar 28, 28 sap days2819991999: Mar 11 – Apr 15, 39 sap days3919981998: Mar 8 – Apr 12, 21 sap days2119971997: Mar 25 – Apr 20, 24 sap days2419961996: Mar 17 – Apr 16, 32 sap days3219951995: Mar 13 – Apr 17, 35 sap days3519941994: Mar 21 – Apr 23, 22 sap days2219931993: Mar 24 – Apr 7, 24 sap days2419921992: Mar 31 – Apr 17, 21 sap days2119911991: Mar 4 – Apr 3, 30 sap days30
Each bar runs from the season's opening signal to its closing signal, estimated from daily Daymet temperatures at Ormstown. Dashed lines mark the typical dates. The right column counts freeze-thaw sap days from December through May.

Maple production

Le Haut-Saint-Laurent in the Census of Agriculture

Statistics Canada counts the farms that report maple taps in its Census of Agriculture every five years. In 2021 it counted 168 in Le Haut-Saint-Laurent, with 834,590 taps; in 2016, 150 farms and 629,757 taps. Among Quebec's 61 census divisions with a published tap count, Le Haut-Saint-Laurent ranks 17th, and 18th of the 94 in this atlas.

Over the five years the farm count changed +12% and taps +33%. Statistics Canada cautions that 2021 and 2016 are not strictly comparable: the census-farm definition changed in 2021, and farms were assigned to their main location more strictly.

Statistics Canada doesn't publish syrup volume by census division, so the Canadian pages show farms and taps, not gallons or litres.

Le Haut-Saint-Laurent maple production, 2016 and 2021 (Statistics Canada, Census of Agriculture)
Census yearFarms reporting tapsTaps
2021168834,590
2016150629,757

A separate, newer source

PPAQ regional fact sheet, 2026

The Producteurs et productrices acéricoles du Québec (PPAQ) publish a fact sheet for each sugaring region, with figures for every MRC. These are from the 2026 Montérégie-Ouest sheet. They count enterprises registered under the joint marketing plan, by where the sugarbush is; the census above counts 2021 farms by their main location. The two sit side by side here and are never added together.

Enterprises
174
under the joint marketing plan
Taps
1.1 million
rounded, as printed
Annual production
5.8 million lb
estimate, pounds of syrup
Value
$19.6 million
Canadian dollars

Taps by forest ownership

Private forest 97%Public forest 3%

  • Figures in millions are rounded to a tenth, as PPAQ printed them.
  • Annual production is PPAQ's estimate (Groupe AGÉCO's yield estimate applied to the taps), not a measured harvest. Montérégie-Ouest sheet (PDF, French)

Nearby

Neighboring maple divisions

Distances are between reference towns; typical dates are each division's own estimate.

About these numbers

The season dates are estimated from 35 seasons of daily high and low temperatures for the Daymet 1-km grid cell at Ormstown, the division's most populous municipality in the 2021 Census; the cell sits at 39 m (128 ft). Each day is scored with the same freeze-thaw rule as our live forecast: a sap day is an overnight low under −1 °C (30.2 °F) followed by an afternoon high over +3 °C (37.4 °F). A season's closing signal is the last sap day before accumulated warmth reaches a threshold, and the opening signal sits 35 days before that, never earlier than the first real freeze-thaw week. The rule was calibrated on 117 state-seasons of USDA-reported dates in the US and is applied here unchanged. In Quebec it reproduces the pattern between regions in producers' reported seasons (Houle et al. 2015), and the typical dates are anchored to that record. Production figures are copied from Statistics Canada as published; the PPAQ figures, from its 2026 regional fact sheet, are shown separately. Full method, the Daymet checks and the Quebec validation → Run a sugarhouse here? Put this sap forecast on your own website →

Sources · 9

  1. 1.Maple taps, Census of Agriculture, 2021 (Table 32-10-0362-01) · Statistics Canada
  2. 2.Maple taps, Census of Agriculture, 2011 and 2016 (Table 32-10-0423-01) · Statistics Canada
  3. 3.Fiche région 2026 : Montérégie-Ouest · Producteurs et productrices acéricoles du Québec
  4. 4.Daymet: Daily Surface Weather Data on a 1-km Grid for North America, Version 4 R1 · ORNL DAAC
  5. 5.Impacts of climate change on the timing of the production season of maple syrup in eastern Canada (PLOS ONE 10(12): e0144844, 2015) · Houle et al.
  6. 6.Sap flow in sugar maple: timing and weather drivers (Frontiers in Agronomy, 2025) · de Lima Santos et al.
Show 3 more
  1. 7.2021 Census cartographic boundary files (census divisions, population centres) · Statistics Canada
  2. 8.Population and dwelling counts, 2021 Census (Tables 98-10-0002-01 and 98-10-0011-01) · Statistics Canada
  3. 9.GeoNames geographical database (CA) · GeoNames

Licences and attribution

  • Adapted from Statistics Canada, Census of Agriculture 2021 and 2016 (Tables 32-10-0362-01 and 32-10-0423-01), 2021 Census population and dwelling counts (Tables 98-10-0002-01 and 98-10-0011-01) and 2021 Census cartographic boundary files. This does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada of this product.
  • Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Canada.
  • Thornton, M.M., R. Shrestha, Y. Wei, P.E. Thornton, S-C. Kao, and B.E. Wilson. 2022. Daymet: Daily Surface Weather Data on a 1-km Grid for North America, Version 4 R1. ORNL DAAC, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA. https://doi.org/10.3334/ORNLDAAC/2129
  • Place coordinates: GeoNames (geonames.org), CC BY 4.0.
  • Québec MRC figures: Producteurs et productrices acéricoles du Québec, Fiches région 2026 (production estimates from Groupe AGÉCO).

FAQ

Le Haut-Saint-Laurent sugaring questions

When should I tap maple trees in Le Haut-Saint-Laurent, Quebec?
In a typical year the sap starts running around March 6 near Ormstown and the season winds down around April 14. Have your taps in a day or two before the first forecast string of nights below −1 °C and days above +3 °C. In the past 35 seasons the weather signal came as early as Feb 16 and as late as Mar 31.
How much maple syrup does Le Haut-Saint-Laurent produce?
Statistics Canada doesn't publish syrup volume by census division. Its 2021 Census of Agriculture counted 168 farms reporting 834,590 maple taps in Le Haut-Saint-Laurent, number 17 of 61 Quebec divisions with a published count. Separately, the PPAQ's 2026 fact sheet for the Montérégie-Ouest region estimates annual production at 5.8 million lb of syrup from 1.1 million taps.
How many sap days does Le Haut-Saint-Laurent get in a season?
On average 27.7 freeze-thaw sap days from December through May at Ormstown, of which about 10.2 are textbook days with a night between about −7 and −2 °C and a day between 4 and 9 °C. The best season since 1991 was 2016 (42 sap days); the leanest was 2010 (18).
Where do these dates come from?
From 35 seasons of daily high and low temperatures at Ormstown (Daymet 1-km grid), scored with the same freeze-thaw rule as our live forecast. In Quebec they are anchored to producers' reported season in the region (Houle et al. 2015, 1999–2011). They describe a typical year at one point in the division; your sugarbush, slope and elevation can shift them by days.

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