Air Bounce Adventures 2025

Airbounce Adventures

Air Bounce Adventures is bringing five large air bounce amusements to the festival. they are located by the Arena.

Soper Creek Wildlife Rescue 2025

Durham Region’s ONLY
Wildlife Rehabilitation Hospital

Welcome to Soper Creek Wildlife Rescue, Durham Region’s ONLY Wildlife Rehabilitation Hospital; we are licensed by the Ministry of Natural Resources & Forestry and Canadian Wildlife Services to rescue and rehabilitate sick, injured, abandoned, and orphaned wildlife. Our goal is to release our patients back into the wild.

Events:

    • Learning how to bandage teddy bears
    • How to feed a baby animals station
    • Nutrition Matching Games
    • Skulls, Pelts, and other various animal artifacts
    • Flip & Match Games Associated with wildlife rehabilitation
    • How to help wildlife in your own backyard.

Schedule:

    • Saturday:ย 11am, 1pm, and 3pmย  each show is approximately 30-45 minutes
    • Sunday:ย 10:15am, 12:15pm and 2:15pmย  each show is approximately 30-45 minutes

Salem Alpacas 2025

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Welcome to Salem Alpacas

Salem Alpacas is a Premier Ontario breeder of high quality alpacas. Beginning with only three breeding females in 2000, we are now home to over 30 huacaya alpacas, having at times, over 70 alpacas on the farm.

About Our Farm

Salem Alpacas has been in operation since 2000. It was intended to simply be a hobby farm, for the enjoyment of family and friends.

As new alpaca breeders we joined the Alpaca Ontario association in its start up stage and as such became a founding member. Over the years we have participated in alpaca shows, educational seminars and events. Kathleen had the privilege of serving 2 years as Advertising Director and then a term as President of Alpaca Ontario.

The farm is situated on 25 picturesque acres, which was originally set up for horses. Over the years things have evolved, changed, grown and at times taken over without necessarily planning for it. With 2 additions to the barn, it is now a home to over 40 huacaya alpacas. What was once our hay field has now become fenced pasture. As the alpaca population has grown on the farm so have our products and services. We are a multi-faceted operation, with the participation of family from multiple generations, friends, farm helpers, and co-op students.

Lawn Tractor Pull

an Exciting Annual Event

The 4-H Clubโ€™s Lawn Tractor Pull is one of the favourite annual events at the Sunderland Maple Syrup Festival.

This year the action gets underway at 11:30 on Sunday, ย at the corner of Albert St. near River St.

The lawn tractors are modified by the 4-H members themselves, and designed to pull weighted sleds. The SMSF event will be a demonstration only, but itโ€™s good practice for the 4-H kids who will be entering competitions later in the year.

This attraction is lots of fun for visitors to watch, and even more fun for the competitors!

Jeff Taylor
j-k.taylor@sympatico.ca

Sunderland Tractor Pull 2013

We do things a bit different in the north. This is the 4H tractor pull from the Sunderland Maple Syrup Festival on April 7, 2013.

Petting Zoo & Pony Rides 2025

Welcome to the new age in Petting Zoos, where the world’s animals come together in an interactive and educational environment. The young and the young at heart will enjoy petting, feeding & learning about the animals that most have only read about or seen on TV.

Watch the children’s faces light up as they ride a live pony for the first time. Don’t forget your camera as you will want to keep this proud moment for all to see.

The Tiger Paw Exotics petting zooย and pony rides are located beside the arena. While the petting zoo is free, pony rides are $5 per ride.

Maple Sugaring at Harlaineโ€™s 2025

2025 marks the 28th year that Harlaine Maple Products has welcomed visitors to its sugar shack as part of the Sunderland Maple Syrup Festival. Hundreds of people have visited their farm on Concession 1 south of Sunderland to see how an old-fashioned product is made using the latest in modern technology.

www.HarlaineMaple.ca


Douglas and Gloria Harder purchased the farm in 1954 from Vince Beaton (sons Jack and Jim) who had previously boiled sap at this maple bush, since 1933. Douglas started boiling at his parents maple bush when he was in his early teens, and continued on after purchasing the property. At age 87, Douglas passed away in 2004.

Paul and his Dad tapped around 500 to 600 taps in the 1970โ€™s, all with buckets. In 1984, they put in the first pipeline with approximately 150 taps. The next year, the whole bush was on pipeline. They always had a used evaporator, approximately, 4ร—8, and boiled in the bush with no hydro until 1991, when a new building was built near the house. Now there is water and hydro for late night boiling. The building includes an evaporation room, a store, a kitchen and a small bottling room. Once this building was erected, we were able to expand and now have approximately 2,500 taps.

Photo By Harriet Drake At Harlaine 1
Old Fashion boiling – Photo by Harriet Drake

In 2011, we finally purchased a new Lapierre Force 5 evaporator. Itโ€™s all stainless steel and very efficient. We still fire it with wood, and it can process approximately 250 gallons of sap an hour. On a good year, with many cold nights and warm sunny days, we can make approximately 1700 liters of maple syrup. We also make maple butter and maple sugar candy, for sale along with the popular maple syrup. During the festival years, we have seen over 4,000 people come out to the bush to watch the syrup being made. We have had people involved for the last 18 years of the festival, hosting bush tours, demonstrating maple syrup production, boiling sap in a large kettle as the pioneers did, and showing how the native people boiled sap using a hollowed out log and hot stones from the fire.

Harlaine Maple Products store is open during the festival, plus we have a booth on the main street of Sunderland.ย In 2012, we hosted the first tapping for the Kawartha Haliburton Maple Syrup Association. We are also members of the Ontario Maple Syrup Producers Association.

Harlaine Maple Products have toured the world and we are proud to be able to produce pure maple syrup: A Canadian tradition. As for recipes, we always enjoy fresh maple syrup on Old Fashioned Johnny Cake, maple syrup pie, maple butter tarts and maple apple crisp. Maple Syrup is also excellent on fruit and with carrots, squash and turnip.

REMINDER: Get your bus tickets for a tour of Harlaine Maple Products at Sunderland Public School during the Sunderland Maple Syrup Festival!


Making Maple Candy at Harlaine

Maple syrup season is in full swing here at Harlaine Farms. Here is the process of how we make maple candy. Starting with bowling down the syrup, then running it through a machine to create the candy texture. The moulds are filled, cooled and then ready for snacking. All of this is done hands on at our family farm in Sunderland.

video credit Katie Harder


Book Sale 2024

  • Saturday: 10:00 am – 4:00 pm

Sunderland Branch Public Library
41 Albert Street (Sunderland Public School)
Sunderland, ON
705-357-3109



Over twelve years ago, the Friends of the Sunderland Library began a series of fundraising initiatives to help support the local Sunderland Library Branch. Our earliest endeavors included activities such as raffles at the Fall Fair and garage sales on long weekends but ultimately the Book Sale was seen as our greatest success. That sale has now become our main fund raising activity. During the Maple Syrup Festival each year, the FOSLs hold a book sale at the library site on Saturday and Sunday. We have incredible support from a small group and we are very fortunate to have the assistance of local authors and individuals who are active in the book business. Community members also are a major source of books we sell in support of the library. All funds collected, by donation only, are used to support local library activities. Those include both youth and adult programmes , visiting authors, DVDs/ e-Books, receipt machines, magazine subscriptions, and books purchased from local independent book stores. Our most ambitious purchases to date have been the public Wifi system, book shelves, Dungeons & Dragons resources, and musical instruments. Recently, we provided almost half of the funds for a 3D printer.

Lexy the Rap Dad 2025

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Through his Friendly Fables Rap-A-Long books, songs & videos ‘Lexy the Rap Dad’ is igniting childrenโ€™s imaginations and exploring the world around us with fun-filled adventures

Lexy the Rap Dad is a childrenโ€™s author and rapping dad from Ontario, Canada. The creator of Friendly Fables, a collection of 14 stories and Rap-A-Long songs, is making a name for himself by combining rapping with storytime and itโ€™s fun for the whole family!

It all began when Lexy left the corporate world unexpectedly to care for his infant son who required surgery at The Hospital For Sick Children in Toronto. He created the book series to entertain his own family and found his calling in rapping the stories for others.

Fast forward to today and Lexy is generating buzz among kids and parents for his wildly popular book, songs and YouTube channel. So much so that his 1st and 2nd albums have each reached #1 on the iTunes Children’s Music charts in Canada!

LexyRapDad.com


Garbage Truck Rap – Kids Song About Saving The Environment


DAD DANCE Rap Song For Kids