Following up on his massive publication from 2016, Quebec historian, author, and sugarmaker Réjean Bilodeau has put out a equally sizable second companion volume titled L’histoire de l’acériculture et des sucriers de Bellechasse: Notre Affirmation Régionale, which translates in English to The history of the maple industry and maple producers of Bellechasse: Our Regional Affirmation. As with the earlier volume, this book is entirely in French, but with the wonders of google translate website or phone app, one can navigate their way through a text that is chock full of maple syrup history centered on the producers and equipment manufacturers of the Bellechasse region.
Like in volume one, Bilodeau presents additional up close and personal histories of many more sugarbushes, sugarhouses, and maple syrup producing families in the Bellechasse and includes over 600 black and white images and 56 pages of color photographs. With so many families and companies featured between volume 1 and volume 2, it is hard to imagine that there is a maple producer in Bellechasse that Réjean has yet to acknowledge and present!
Volume two continues to pay homage to Bilodeau’s central theme that the Bellechasse region of Quebec has been the birthplace of most of the important technological innovations in the modern maple syrup industry. The Bellechasse region has so thoroughly embraced this notion that they have officially taken to referring to to the region as “Berceau Mondial de la technologie acéricole” or the World Cradle of the technology of Maple Syrup.
Of course, this is entirely debatable and trends towards the exceptionalism approach to writing history, where the focus is on defending claims to being the first, or the largest or the greatest or the oldest something or other. Bellechasse certainly was an important place for technological development, but it wasn’t the only place, it wasn’t the first place for most things, and what it did produce was not done so in a vacuum. What came out of Bellechasse did so in connection to and as a result of earlier innovation from elsewhere in the maple syrup world.
Of special note to me is a section of the book that recounts research into the early application of vacuum technology to plastic tubing for gathering maple sap and the IPL company’s invention of the Sysvac vacuum system that adapted vacuum technology for milking cows to the movement of maple sap for use with plastic tubing in the early 1970s. Bilodeau describes the arrival of the Sysvac system a game-changing moment in the history of maple syrup.
Bilodeau pays special attention and detail to telling the story of the origins and development of the IPL and CDL, Inc., the maple equipment companies headquartered in Saint-Lazare-de-Bellechasse including its growth and expansion into markets in the United States. Other chapters recount Réjean’s battle with cancer, sharing of the recognition and praise he has received for the first book, as well as a chapter telling the story of the early settlement of Bellechasse and how it relates to the early development of maple sugaring in Quebec.
For the maple historians among us, the book also outlines Réjean’s role in the leadership, development, and presentation of an exhibit of historic artifacts related to evolution of maple syrup making in Bellechasse. For those unable to view the exhibit in person, Réjean kindly included color photographs of every one of the exhibition cabinets. The exhibit only ran through November of 2017 but it is reported that Réjean Bilodeau is leading a plan to develop a permanent exhibit or even museum dedicated to an expanded telling the Bellechasse maple history story.
Yours truly even got a special mention in this volume when Réjean recounted his delight to discover that I had featured his first book on this blog. Réjean was kind enough to refer to me as, in his opinion, “the most important maple historian on the south side of our border” (translated from French). That is certainly hyperbole and the sort of exceptionalism I referred to earlier that I tend to reject, nevertheless I will try to live up to such high praise every day.
In spite of an ongoing battle with cancer, Réjean is wasting no time on researching and writing volume three of this series. With so much material in volume one and two of this series, it remains to be seen what volume three will include. Rest assured, Réjean Bilodeau has more things to say and will continue to spread the word of the importance of Bellechasse in the history of maple syrup.
Only 1,000 copies of the book have been printed, and it is not clear of a second printing would be planned. So, when they are sold out they are gone. As with volume 1 of this series, I purchased my copy of volume 2 through the Canadian maple equipment dealer CDL for $60 US plus $33.80 for shipping. Try contacting CDL in Quebec to place an order by email or phone at 418-883-5158 ext. 337.
