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I live in a 50 acre hard maple bush
on the southern end of Georgian Bay on
the Niagara Escarpment near Owen
Sound, Ontario. It is a natural place for a
syrup operation. It is also a natural place
to use the Land Rover in a farming operation-
the original purpose of these versatile
vehicles. Boiling maple sap requires a
lot of firewood and I also heat my house
totally with firewood so cutting, winching
and hauling firewood is a big job and the
Land Rover is necessary for this activity.
Sap is collected from sugar maple
trees, and boiled down to a sugar concentration
of 66 degrees Brix. At this point it
is officially maple syrup. It takes 50 gallons
of sap to make one gallon of syrup.
This ratio can range throughout the season
from 40:1 to 60:1. It takes a lot of
patience to run a syrup operation, but
then it takes a lot of patience to operate a
39 year old vehicle too.
“Of course this was a major learning experience and quickly illustrated the ‘rebuildability’ of the design.
I can remember having my first Meccano set when I was 5 years old and the
Land Rover is certainly the ultimate toy in that department”
In my operation, the sap is pumped into a 45 gallon barrel
inside the Land Rover and transported to the sugar shack.
I used to use two 45 gallon barrels on the truck but when I
went through two sets of springs in two years, I went to one
barrel. My bush trail has deteriorated into a deeply rutted track
so the Land Rover is perfect for hauling sap and firewood. In
fact, without the Land Rover I would need a 4 wheel drive tractor
and a pick up truck to do the same type of bush work and
also have an additional vehicle for highway use.
The sap is boiled inside the sugar shack on an 80 year old
pan excavated from a neighboring farm where the current
owner’s great grandfather used it to make syrup. I made my
own fireplace to fit this pan. This is a very slow system and
takes between 14 and 18 hours to boil 4 barrels of sap down
to syrup. The variation in time is due to the sugar content of the
sap, (it can change daily), atmospheric conditions, the quality
of the firewood and the amount of help available – most days
there is no help. Some days, we have to slow down for repairs
to the syrup equipment or the Land Rover. Four barrels of sap
generally produce about 16 quarts of syrup which is then filtered
and bottled and sold here at home.
We get tourists and school groups here to see the operation
and usually somebody asks if they can buy the Land Rover.
I always reply that it is not for sale as I am taking it with me to
my next destination. The longer I own it the better I like it. The
design is ingenious and it is still the only vehicle one can use
as a tractor in the bush and immediately after drive it on the
highway at reasonable highway speeds.
I rebuilt the engine 9 years ago at 100,000 miles and have
put another 50,000 miles on it since. There are also thousands
of engine hours of “bush use” which don’t show up on the
odometer. Although there is always something to fix on it
(today I am replacing a front frame spring bushing), I have
enjoyed driving it for 39 years and it has only left me stopped
on the highway once (my wife has had it quit on her 3 times,
but that’s another story). I expect to keep my Land Rover as
long as I am driving --- and keep maintaining it too.
P
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