Locals hoping to pick up bigleaf maple syrup from Shannon Farms this season are out of luck. The multi-generational dairy and agri-tourism operation in Port Alberni, BC, announced it will not have its bigleaf maple syrup for sale during the Winter 2025/2026 season because a mild winter disrupted sap flow.
“Unfortunately, our mild winter is not optimal for sap flow, so we will not have big leaf maple syrup available for sale this year,” the farm stated on its website. Maple sap runs best when nights are below freezing and days climb above, creating pressure changes that push sap through the tree. This past winter’s warmth, predicted by the Old Farmer’s Almanac in its long-range forecast for Southern British Columbia, meant those freeze-thaw cycles rarely lined up.
In the Alberni Valley, bigleaf maple tapping usually happens between December and March, with most sap collected in January and February. Port Alberni has some of the highest sap production rates on Vancouver Island, but only when temperatures cooperate. Without sustained cold snaps, even healthy trees yield little.
The syrup shortage is a hit for folks who buy directly from Shannon Farms, which has made local food part of its agri-tourism appeal alongside farm markets, workshops, and a vacation rental cabin. The farm, run by the Shannon family on Beaver Creek Road since 1935, primarily produces grass-fed milk sold to Dairyland and Tree Island Yogurt for its Tree Island Gourmet Yogurt brand.
Nearby, the Hupacasath First Nation’s Kleekhoot Gold operation has also noted how narrow the production window can be. For Shannon Farms customers, the empty syrup shelves serve as a reminder of how closely small-scale farming tracks the weather.
