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History

Historical Facts

 1945 - Roger Rivard is born in St. Gerard, Québec on February 2nd.

1968 - Roger marries Marguerite Paradis in Black Lake, Québec on August 24th.

1973 - Roger starts his contracting business, G. Roger Rivard Construction Ltd.

1988 - Roger & Marguerite purchase a lakefront lot on Jogi Road.

1989 - Roger & Marguerite purchase 18 acres of property on Forest View Road.

1990 – Roger begins making maple syrup using buckets and spiles to collect sap. He uses a hand-made evaporator that he places in his front yard on Jogi Road. He is using his ATV with a trailer to collect the sap water from the lot and transports it to the house (about 1 km distance)

1992 - Roger begins building a sugar shack on the property at Forest View Road.

1993–  The hand-made evaporator is moved from Roger's front yard to the new building on Forest View Road. 

1993- Roger starts the sale of Maple Syrup from the Sugar Shack to neighbours and friends. 

1994 - Roger’s Sugar Shack is registered with the township.

1999 – Pipelines are added in the bush to bring sap water down from the trees to the shack, the tanks are filled using gravity.

2003 – A pump is added to help bring the sap water from the pipes to the shack.

2004 – Storage tanks are brought in to assist in greater syrup production.

2005 – The hand made evaporator is replaced by a small stainless steel evaporator, equipped with 2 front pans for finishing off syrup.

2007 – Roger's Sugar Shack joins the Frontenac Farmer's Market

2008 – The evaporator is upgraded with a hood to reduce steam build-up in the shack and cut down on boiling time.

2010 – A new, ecologically, energy-efficient evaporator is purchased.

2011 – Roger completes an addition to the shack creating a separate room from the evaporator room. The space is intended to store a reverse osmosis machine and to use as a warmer multi-purpose room.

2012 – A reverse osmosis system is purchased and installed at the shack cutting down boiling time significantly and assisting in greater syrup production.

2014 – A maple butter machine is purchased, used to make maple butter, it will reduce preparation time and decrease the amount of syrup separation during storage.

2017 - The pump house is redesigned to allow the replacement of the old extractor for a new one, along with a more powerful pump to handle extra tubes. The pump house now enables the sap to flow directly from the tubes into a sap storage tank.

2017 - A larger reverse osmosis system is purchased which will decrease boiling time by a significant margin

2018 - CELEBRATING 25 YEARS OF MAPLE SYRUP SALES.

2019 - A filter press was purchased, allowing syrup to be filtered with less cooling than traditional wool filter socks.