Coronavirus leaves bitter taste for Canada maple sugar shacks

Under a dazzling sky, with spring in the air, syrup is flowing in a maple grove near the village of Saint-Alexis.

With a mallet in hand, feet braced in deep snow, Simon Lanoue pounds plastic tubing into one tree after another to drain their sap, weaving a vast spider web in the forest.

As the sweet liquid drips slowly from the trees, Lanoue laments his losses due to Quebec province's measures to slow the spread of the new coronavirus.

"For me, this represents a shortfall of between USD 80,000 and USD 100,000," he said.

Quebec has ordered all residents to stay home except for essential tasks, closed eat-in restaurants and even limited travel in the province.

The 140-seat dining hall in Lanoue's Osias sugar shack, located in an old barn about 60 kilometers (40 miles) north of Montreal, is deserted.

On weekends around this time of year, diners normally rotate in and out every two hours.

Lanoue had to close his dining room in mid-March, barely two weeks after the start of "maple sugar time."
Usually, "catering represents from 75 to 80 per cent" of revenues, but this year Lanoue will have to be content with the sale of his syrup, "which does not represent much."
Usually we come to eat at the cabin. But this year, because of the virus, it's not possible."
"It's a catastrophic situation," she says. "This year 2020 is completely lost for (owners)."