On Vedder Mountain, a retired couple discovers sweetness, community and abundance hidden in the forest canopy.
Ayako and Steve Archer realized a source of abundance was hidden in plain sight after moving to their retirement property on Abbotsford’s Vedder Mountain. The maple and birch trees nestled among cedars held riches in the form of sap, the elixir that transforms into syrup.
Ayako’s professional background as a chef had made her familiar with birch syrup as a sought-after culinary wonder. And, like most Canadians, the Archers were well-aware of maple syrup’s iconic status as a cultural touchstone. Due to their extensive work with Japanese clients (he as a business consultant, she from her family’s travel agency, both specializing in Japan), they were also more aware than most of maple syrup’s role as a high-value export.
But were they expecting to produce artisanal syrup from the sap in their very own trees? No indeed. Did they know that just about every birch and maple tree holds precious sweet drops that can be boiled down into syrup? Absolutely not. Like most of us, the Archers thought of maple syrup as a product derived from sugar maples in eastern North America — and they hardly thought about birch syrup at all.
Now that they’ve spent several years developing the knowledge and skills to make syrup from a range of birch and maple trees just outside their front door, the Archers want to share their serendipitous discovery — not only the syrup but the wisdom of the trees and what it means for a sustainable local food system.
Indigenous peoples around the world have long understood the value of these trees for food and medicine, but the rest of us are just catching up. Birch sap in particular has been growing in popularity for the past two decades because it provides such a wealth of nutrient-rich properties — notably from manganese, magnesium, and zinc. Today, it’s mainstream enough that it’s coveted by culinary elites, health seekers and beauty specialists.
Not surprisingly, Ayako’s first focus on birch syrup was culinary. Later, when she began running her father’s business, she considered its potential appeal for tourists.
Top left, Ayako and Steve Archer stand beneath the traditional Japanese torii gate that marks the forest entrance, symbolizing respect for the land and designating the forest as a sacred place. The converted sugar shack, once a work shed, now houses a commercia-lgrade evaporator, reverse osmosis system and certified food processing facility.
For more than 40 years, Ayako’s father co-owned and operated three gift shops across Canada, catering specifically to Japanese tourists. Maple syrup was their bestseller.
Ayako took over the business in 2019 and introduced birch syrup to the product line based on popularity with chefs and fine diners. It didn’t really catch on with tourists, perhaps because of its much higher price tag, or perhaps because birch doesn’t resonate as a classic Canadian product the way maple does.
Birch syrup is also less sweet than maple, with a different flavour profile. Ayako explains, “The assumption is that it’s going to be sweet like other syrups. But it’s more complex. It’s better to think of it more like aged balsamic vinegar.” Accordingly, the “tanginess works well with cheese boards and charcuterie trays. It provides a contrast for meat, the same way cranberry sauce brightens up turkey. And there’s nothing like birch syrup on vanilla ice cream.”
When she chose to close the stores in 2020 due to reduced tourism during the COVID-19 pandemic, syrup stayed on her mind. “My father would be amused at the irony of me making maple and birch syrup now.”
Even so, Ayako couldn’t have imagined the role syrup would play in the Archers’ retirement. They were planning to move from Steveston to a bigger property where they could dive into to some sort of project. With an as-yet-unformed vision of what exactly the project would be, they were open to living anywhere from Richmond to Agassiz. They would know the right property when they saw it, and the project would reveal itself then.
After a long, disheartening search, they found Mountain House.
Falling in love through crisis
The property had caught Steve’s eye online, but it took three tries before he convinced Ayako to look at it. He “loved the property instantly. The way the trees form a canopy over the long, steep driveway as you approach the house. It reminded me of a resort town in Japan where my family spent the summers when I was growing up — Karuizawa, Whistler’s sister city.” The next morning, he told Ayako, “We’ll regret it if we don’t make an offer.”
In response, she cried. “I was heartbroken. I couldn’t imagine what kind of project we’d do there. It’s 10 acres of property, all forest. The elevation rises from five metres to 206 metres. There’s a cliff at the top.”
She eventually fell in love with the towering trees, massive moss-covered boulders and spacious views of farm country, but it took an emergency to get her there.
Just two weeks after the Archers moved to Mountain House in November 2021, the Sumas Prairie was underwater. Because their land stands high above the prairie, Steve and Ayako could provide safety from the rising floodwaters.
They offered sanctuary to two neighbouring families, providing warm beds, hot showers, home-cooked meals and livestock shelter. “There were seven dogs, five cats, some sheep and a goat,” Ayako remembers. Their guests rowed back and forth daily between the Archers,’ their own houses and their neighbours’ homes, rescuing animals, salvaging food and checking property damage for friends.
To this day, they remain friends with the families they got to know during the flood, commemorating the bonds of community every year with their annual “flood party.”
These friends inspired Ayako to recognize Mountain House’s potential. “Our neighbours were always so busy with their properties. They were always tending crops, taking care of animals and repairing equipment. So I started asking them, ‘What can we do with our property?’” Their suggestions were thoughtful, but nothing felt quite right to Ayako.
In the end, she was alone in the forest when she found her path to a retirement project. She was using an app on her phone to identify flora on the property. When it revealed that the tree in front of her was a paper birch, her eureka moment came. “I’m a chef. I sold birch syrup in my father’s stores. I can make it myself.” Paper birches flourished everywhere, alongside plentiful bigleaf and Rocky Mountain maples. The Archers had their project.
Photo by Joshua Tournemille.
Finally, a project
Was it a case of being careful what you wish for? Making syrup is a labour of love, but birch syrup is labour-intensive indeed. While birch syrup is made using a similar method as maple syrup, there’s a catch — and that’s one of the reasons you haven’t seen birch syrup in every corner shop. Maple syrup is commonly made from sugar maples in eastern North America, where it takes 40 litres of sap to produce one litre of syrup. Birch syrup requires 100 to 120 litres — a fact that helps to explain its much higher price tag.
While the Archers never expected their project to be easy, they couldn’t have anticipated how challenging it would be.
First, they needed access trails for installing and maintaining the tapping system. With the help of their three children and their spouses, along with neighbours willing to trailblaze the steep rocky slopes, they began creating a network of trails.
It was the kind of community collaboration that’s central to Japanese culture… exactly what they’d been yearning for when they moved to Mountain House.
With their shared background in Japanese culture — Ayako was born in Canada to a Japanese family, while Steve was born and raised in Japan — the Archers grew up with an ever-present reverence for the land. At Mountain House, their neighbours’ commitment to the land was both familiar and inspiring.
“We raised our kids trying to fuse together both cultures,” says Steve, who served as president of the Canada-Japan Society of B.C. for seven years. “We have always aspired to incorporate the best values and practices of both in everything we do.”
A steep learning curve
With the trails in place, it was time to start learning how to make syrup. But the maple syrup industry — along with all its infrastructure and wisdom of practice — is largely in Eastern Canada. Sourcing equipment and securing mentorship was a challenge. Adapting it to B.C.’s geographical differences was another.
For consultation on making birch syrup, Ayako connected with experts closer to home. Ted Traer and Heloise Dixon-Warren of Moose Meadows Farm are experienced producers near Quesnel, B.C. who provide a range of consulting services to would-be farmers. With their input, the Archers were ready to make a start.
Beginning with the traditional method of hanging buckets from each tree, the Archers soon recognized the benefits of a modernized tubing system and eventually installed a network of narrow tubing, best suited to the steep gradient at Mountain House.
Then there was the filtering, reducing, straining and bottling. Each step is a precise arena of delicacy fraught with potential errors, where millimetres and percentages of degrees loom as large as the bears that saunter through Steve and Ayako’s backyard.
When the Archers decided to expand from a hobby to a business, it was time to invest in a reverse osmosis system and a commercial-grade evaporator. Using both pieces of equipment increases the speed and accuracy of syrup production.
This equipment takes up a lot of space, and farmgate sales require a government-certified food processing facility, so Steve and Ayako converted an old work shed on the property into a modern-day sugar shack. But don’t be misled by the term “shack” — their gleaming kitchen is the centrepiece for syrup tours and tastings. An adjacent lounge in the shack, available as a venue for off-site corporate meetings, is cosy-chic enough to impress top-tier executives.
The Archers’ willingness to persist, meeting challenge after challenge with unwavering stamina, reflects their commitment to the trees. “Respect for the land is always on our minds,” Steve says.
The traditional Japanese torii gates they installed at Mountain House demonstrate this respect. Steve explains, “The gates signify that you’re entering a sacred place, like a shrine. One of our gates stands at the forest entrance. The forest is our sacred place.”
Seeing out their goal of making syrup from their own trees also reflects Ayako and Steve’s commitment to their community. It’s fitting that friends and family became their first customers once the syrup was bottled, labelled and officially available for purchase.
They’re ready to branch out, not simply to sell their syrup to a broader customer base, but also to help more people understand the riches of birch and the potential for further birch products in Southwestern B.C. A local source of sweetener provides high value to a regional food system, especially when it’s a sustainable product like syrup.
But with a small, unpredictable yield of the familiar favourite, maple syrup (maple sap only comes after a deep freeze and subsequent warm spell), the Archers can only offer a small amount of maple syrup for sale. The less familiar birch is their more reliable product (birch sap runs every spring); a more predictable yield allows for business development. This is good news for the specialized foodie market; those who love birch syrup love it a lot.
On the other hand, those unfamiliar with birch syrup benefit from support as they learn to love it — right down to understanding when and how to use it. For example, the sugar in maple syrup comes from sucrose, but birch syrup is mainly fructose and glucose. These sugars mean birch is quick to scorch. Use it for sauce, and you’ve got a gourmet delight. Use it for a marinade before cooking, and you’ve got way more caramelization than you wanted.
Ayako considers these challenges. “It’s been four years since I tried tapping that first paper birch. If I’d realized how much work this project would be…” she says with a laugh. “But it’s been rewarding. We’re learning all the time. In that sense, it’s a wonderful retirement project.”
For Steve, Mountain House has proven far more valuable than he first anticipated. Beyond a new home and a retirement project, the property gives the Archers an opportunity to express the values they’ve developed from their “experiences of East and West.” It has also deepened their appreciation for family, community, hard-won expertise and the ways flexible problem-solving can lead to sustainable solutions.
They’ve seen such ingenuity reap rewards while visiting Japan, where a maple syrup industry is taking root by tapping maples not typically associated with sugaring (such as ornamental dwarf varieties) and positioning processing infrastructure in areas not typically associated with agriculture (such as an old golf course). They’re keen to see similar ingenuity in the Canadian food system.
Ayako reflects on their journey through the trees. “It’s a dream come true for us. We’ve transformed a rural residential property into a working farm that’s ready for the next generation to take over — whether that’s our kids or someone else. There’s so much value in the land. It’s just different from what we thought it would be. The trees have so much to offer.”
A Mountain House
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