Festival Information

Located inside the Elmvale Arena gates, the Sugar Shack is the first place to stop for answers to any question you may have about the day at the festival. Be sure to pick up your copy of the Festival Guide.

Free bus transportation to the Sugar Bush is available, catch the bus near the Sugar Shack. Thank you to Tim & Peggy Lalonde for sponsoring this years transportation.

Lost & Found Location
Find something? Bring it to the Sugar Shack and we’ll do our best to find the owner.
Lost something? Check-in in at the Sugar Shack. If it’s been found this is where it will be.

Here’s how to find us • Take Hwy 400 north to Barrie- Bayfield Street. Continue north on Bayfield out of Barrie. Bayfield is now County Road #27 (formerly Highway 27), Continue on #27 for 20 km. ( You’ll cross the Horseshoe Valley Rd.) At the road to Wasaga Beach (County Rd.#92/Queen St.) you have arrived in Elmvale.

Local Schools & Churches have agreed to allow parking on their property.  For more information regarding these locations please refer to the “Festival Map” provided online.

Springwater Township will be enforcing no parking along the west side of Amelia Street, the south side of Stone Street, and the north side of William Street.

The streets will be clearly marked by the Township as tow-away zones and this will be strictly enforced on Festival day. Special event parking lots throughout the village will be well marked. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to approach one of our volunteers.

Parking guides will help you find a spot for the day.

Every year the excitement started in January. We would see Dad starting to organize the space in the sugar camp, moving boxes and cleaning every surface. As a family we would all start paying closer attention to Bob’s Garden weather report on CKVR; waiting for daytime temperatures of 5° and night time of – 5° and before you knew it, it was “go” time. The day we would get off the school bus and see that Dad had tapped the front trees with buckets was our cue to run through the bush to find him and start asking when we can start boiling sap.

We could tell when sap started significantly collecting by the noise of the vacuum pump running all day and sometimes at night. When I was really young, before the neighbourhood of Ritchie Crescent was built, we were able to see from our school yard across the farmers fields to the 8th concession. When smoke would rise from just the right spot, we knew Dad was boiling and would tell anyone who had ears.

Most of our evenings were spent in the sugar shack, visiting with cousins who came to help, aunts, uncles and other family and friends who stopped by every year to relive and retell their stories of sugaring off at the Lalonde’s Sugar Shack since 1958. And of course working our first paid jobs – giving guided tours.

It was my duty to bring out meals for everyone and I loved eating every dinner by the heat of the evaporator, listening to the jokes, banter, stories and soaking up the shared knowledge. Both Dad and I are spring babies so our birthdays were celebrated with cake and the smell of wood smoke and maple syrup in the sugar camp. Sometimes after all the food I would find someone napping under the flu pans or in the morning before heading to the bus we would wake Dad from his nap in front of the evaporator – having stayed out in the camp all night because you make syrup when the sap is flowing (meaning sometimes you work for days without a break).

Our spring class trips were always to my house imagine taking your regular bus to school, getting on another bus just to come back home with all your class mates. Everyone asking questions about something you witness daily, being amazed that I have such easy access to candy and syrup – so much candy and syrup that I pass up on the free samples!

Now, I am Mother to three very sweet girls who love to put Grampy’s maple syrup on everything from pancakes to cereal, veggies to toast and directly into their mouths when Mom and Dad aren’t looking. I am looking forward to sharing my memories and experiences with them as they grow, making new ones together.

Maybe upon your visit to Lalonde’s Maple Sugar Bush you will catch us sharing a meal by the fire while telling jokes and stories… if you’re lucky.