About Us
Every March, maple lovers from Fredericton to Woodstock can satisfy their desire to experience a sugarbush at Dumfries Maples, only 35 minutes outside Fredericton and less than 45 from Woodstock.
Nathan Scott and his sister Jane Scott are welcoming visitors every season to savour the sweet aroma of sap boiling down, watch the golden syrup being bottled, taste the sticky goodness of taffy on snow, and enjoy a delicious pancake breakfast in their beautiful cedar log cookhouse.
The sap house and cookhouse overlook the Saint John River with a small portion of the sugar bush located next to the water. Visitors will be able to take a short walk to see the sap dripping into the buckets on the maples beside the river or hike for a short distance through the woodlot behind the sap house.
“This is the just the first step in offering people the full sugar bush experience,” Nathan said. Future plans include interpretative trails.
The sugar bush has been in Nathan and Jane’s family for four generations, part of a family farm. Much of the farm was expropriated during the building of Mactaquac dam and the family left the small community. The maples rested for more than 30 years until Nathan, a forester, moved to Dumfries in the late ‘90s and began learning the art of making maple syrup. They tapped for the first time in 1998. “We have slowly built the business up from a small hobby operation to a small commercial operation.”
Jane began helping with marketing and by 2007-2008, the family operation was up to 1500 taps and the Dumfries Maples label was established. They began making maple butter as well as syrup. This season, they will be adding more goodies, including candy and maple cream, and on weekends there may be an extra sweet treat, maple cotton candy spun on site.
The operation has already grown to 1900 bucket taps and another 200 taps on a gravity fed line and the sugarbush has a capacity for 3500 to 4000 taps.
Visitors are welcome weekdays from 9:00am to 3:00pm to buy syrup, maple butter, candy and cream and see the syrup being made if it is a boiling day. Guests are welcome on Saturday, Sundays (including holidays) from 9:00am to 4:00pm. Taffy will be made on weekends, weather permitting. Visitors should can call the information line: (506) 575-TAPS (8277) for up-to-date information on what is happening at the sugary. Nathan and Jane's journal page also provides snapshots of what is happening in the sugarbush.