Maine’s richest source of maple sugar faces uncertain future

Alcide (left) and Benoit Giroux stand outside their sugar house in Big Six Township on Monday. They tap 80,000 trees each year but say they may have to close down if the landowner doesn't agree to a more fair contract. (Troy R. Bennett | BDN)

BIG SIX TOWNSHIP, Maine — Benoit and Alcide Giroux are Quebecers, but because of the geographic oddity that is the largest American maple sugarbush, they’re third-generation Maine farmers.

In the 1950s, their grandfather started tapping trees in this Somerset County township, just across a one-lane St. John River bridge from Sainte-Aurelie, Quebec. Canadians living nearby have made maple syrup in this desolate corner of Maine for more than a century.

The brothers took over the family’s sugaring business in the 1980s, growing the operation from 2,000 taps to 82,000, producing around 350,000 pounds of syrup per year that fetches $2.25 per pound wholesale. Big Six is the largest U.S. sugarbush, comprising 340,000 taps and a quarter of Maine’s syrup production.

But it’s tied up with landowner Paul Fortin’s bottom line, which has created uncertainty about the heritage crop, leaving leaseholders and Maine’s maple industry to hover somewhere between eternal preservation and a devastating blow.

The County is pleased to feature content from our sister company, Bangor Daily News. To read the rest of “Maine’s richest source of maple sugar faces uncertain future,” an article by contributing Bangor Daily News staff writerMichael Shepherd, please follow this link to the BDN online.