The president of the St. Pierre Museum says the maple harvest got underway this past weekend and the conditions are ideal.

Rolly Gagne says compared to Quebec, we have a very short maple season in Manitoba so it is important that we capitalize on it when we can.

"We tapped just under 200 trees over the weekend and we've got about 300 taps and you should have seen, it was unreal how some of those trees were just waiting to get tapped because the sugar water sap was just pouring out, it was unbelievable actually."

Gagne says they hope to get at least 10 more days of flowing maple water before the season ends. He notes the St. Pierre Museum often gets calls from local enthusiasts that need some advice during the harvest.

"I know that the guys that used to do this before, they had helped out quite a few people so there are quite a few people in southeastern Manitoba that are tapping, not on a large volume like ours but on a smaller scale. We do have some people that have maybe 20 or 30 taps."

Gagne says with the good start to the harvest they should be able to use some of their own fresh maple syrup during this coming weekend’s Sugaring Off Festival at the St. Pierre Museum. He adds if they do run out of their own, it is not a problem because they always import prime number 1 syrup from Quebec just in case.