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  1. -:‘: J ..-.--., -. - ô r 4- 162 HO L D AY 201 6/201 7

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  3. It’s an answer that vould bring joy in Quebec—atithenticity is what FPAQ is selling. Canadian maple us real, while ail those high lhtctose Jemimas are as phonv as the bottie that is the body of Mrs. Butterworth. In n world covcred in plastic and going to heli. there’s nothing more honest than sap. In Canada. people teli you the trap pers got it from the Indians, who got it froin their ancestors. who got it from the gods. It’s the death and rebirth of the forest turned into wine. If consumers know that, it’s partly because of FPAQ, which has tumed Quebec into a brand. Have there been side effects to ail this success? Has the federa tion, with its quotas and its methods of control (quotas must be enforced). reaped its own sticky harvest’? Start with those high prices. By making synlp production seem like a good business instead ofjust an eccentric survivalist hobb it bas brought a great increase in production. much of it in the US. Just 111cc OPEC, which, with its near monopolv. spurred the search for new sources. With ofi, it’s the deep deposits reached only by fracking. With svrup, it’s forests in Vermout. New Hampshire, and especially New York State, which. Canadiaus teil you with a shudder. has three times more maple trees than ail of Qtiehec’s inaple fanns combined. The French province produces 72 percent of the world supply, but W thc Americans ever make the push to set-sufficiency, French Canada is cooked. In 2015, Quebec’s minister of agriculture, Pierre Paradis, commissioned a report on EP\Q and the industry—just how thr cottld that 72 percent 1h11? Whilc givirig proper credit to the cartel, the report. noting. arnong other thiugs. how readuly joumaiist.s like inc compare FEAQ to OPEC, called on the federation to loosen its mies, scntp its quo tas, and let n thousand flowers bloom. ‘It’s a mafia.” n producer who has defied the cartel mcently said to J7ze Globe cincïMail of FPAQ. Last year, they tried to seize my symp. I lad to [move the prodtict into New BnmswickJ at night. This year, they hit meith an injunction.” And what about that most troubling ofuuintended consequences: the black market. the subterranean world of contraband sap where wildcatters inove unmarked barrels through Elmore Leonard country. the seedy historv behind your stack of morning hotcakes or pan- cakes, on as they insisted everywhere I tvent, crêpes. Especinlly inter esting are tIc crhninais, pirates ofsyrup nation, who. attmcted bv the peak prices, skulk througli warehouses, waiting for the watchman to doze off ovcr bis Hockei An:s’ as the getaway truck idies. mericans are focused on the vvrong border. It’s flot Mexico, with ail this dubious talk about building fi wall. but Canada, with its Mounties, and cornedy writ ers who move among us, betrayed only by the occasional rnispro nunciation of “about,” that threatens our way of life. If this nation was flot founded on the free flow of syrup, it should have been. And now, as anyone with kids cari teil you, the price of svrup lias rernamed stable and high; it’s more expensive than ou. Is it Arab sheikhs who did this, Russian oligarclis’? No. It’s Canadians, who, organized into an ironfisted cartel, have estahÏished a stranglehoid on that honey-flavored elLxir. In short, FPAQ—the Federation of Quebec Mapie Syrup Produc ers—is OPEC. Formed in 1966, the fèderation was tasked with taking a business in which few could make a decent living—the price went north to south with the quality ofthe yield, which vent north to south tth the qualitv ofthe spdng—-and tuming it into a respectable trade. This was accornplished in the classic way: quotas, rules. \bu control supply, vou control price. You lirnit suppJy vou raise price. Because Qtiebec makes 72 percent ofthe world’s maple snip, it’s been able to set the price. As ofthis iting, the cornmodity is valued at just over $ 1,30t) a banel, 26 times more expensive than crude. (1f JeU Clam pett shot up n sugar maple instead of n mountain holler, he’d have been a whole different order of rich.) I discovered this for myseif on n recent trip to the supermarket. My son returned from the shelves with n small artisanal jug of Canadian syrup-—”genuine maple” lias prospered in concert with the boom in organic food—which cost. $15! It shocked me. I stonned up the aisle to sec for mysell where I discovered Aunt Jemima, companion of so many Sunday momings. in ber babushka, costing just four bucks for a farnily.size jug. When I asked the cashier to explain this discrepancv, she pointed rudely at Aunt Jemima and said, “‘Cause that’s flot real syntp.” “Then what is it’?” “I don’t know. High-fnictose com syrup’? Food coloring? Goo’?” Sweet Nothings unt Jeinima is n phom, a fake. In fact, there really was no Aunt Jernima. The original characterwas borrowed from n minstrel show that was touring the South at the end of the l9th cenrnrv. The orininal Jemima was n whhe man in black face, possibiy a Gennan. The char- acter was re-purposed in the 1890s by an Aincrican miil owner who sold pancake mix with an Aunt Jernima who, though srniling beueath her headscarf, looks nothing like the Aunt Jemirna of my chuldhood. In 1893, marketers hired CONTI x U E D f) N s i kG i C z NEARLY 540,000 GALLONS 0F SYRUP \VAS STOLEN——12.5 PERCENT 0F THE RESERVE—WITFI A STREET VALUE 0F $13.4 MILLION. C C D C z C z Y G I VA N I T Y FA I R www voniyfcircom HOCIOAY 2016/2017

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  5. -otherway is you nhi•1 froin it. I neyer understood tht. especially something that brings a lot of pe’p1e a lot of joy. And by the way, it’s not -: going‘ayvhere, so you better get comfortable ith it. bu can”t reiioe it fiom the culture.” Just as ‘Çhristnias Stoiy was beginning its peienrnal lilè oi’televulon, Shepherd’s influence began to recede. DnaId fagen, 0f Steely Dan. one ofShepherd’s nighNy1 fanshoas trans fixed by Shepherd”s “modeist knowincness,” noticed “a strain of grandiosi1creeping into Shepherds routines. . to death like his pal Jack Kerottac, &‘OD like Lcnny Bruce, ‘ Fagen wrote, but he ally succurnbed to that very real disease of loathing and in accornpanying defenses.” Sl herd retired to Sanibel Island, on Flotidas GuW Coast, and passed awav in 1999, two years aller Ttirner Broadcastiruz began its 24-hour Chiist mas marathon showrng ot his movie. But long before that. Shepherd had hegun dismanthng bis own lcgac coine as far as to .-. .- renounce his career on the radio -lin count- .less hours spinning tales deep into the night —as I.“just another gig.’” a mere stepping-stone to tele- :;:. ision and the inoies. Shepherd neyer realized ‘ carne Scrooged, Mitch Glazer and Michael ODonoghue’s marvelous. modem postinodemn •takedown of Charles Dickens’s A Christuicis Cciml. And in 2003, Will Ferreil. !fresh from the Noi-th Pole. would wander into the Lincoln Tunnel in E/f the sarne year BiÏÏy Bob Thomton would take the black— disgnintled. depailment—store Santap A christ- I disclaimers—has beco,p oum cozv, sentimental hoiidav movie. “I’y”thought about this a lot,” savs Bfflingsley.)J’don’t know ifit was the first, but h certajrrl’y was one of the best embodi- ments oÇ’t’reai thrnily. There’s tension, there’s - soine4ar of the fathei: there’s anxietv in the tis1 Cal!. 2016 (S(PIW134) -, . He didn’t drik himscW . (1eIania Trump, (2) Ivnkc Trirnp, Mchcel Strahon, (4) KeIIy Ripa. (5) Huma Abedin, (6) Alex Rodri ez, (7) Angetec Jolie, (8) R IloryClinton (14)Mar ccr(15)GhazaIaKhon, (16) KhzrKhan,(17) Gretchen Canson. (18) Roger ando (20( R er MrJ :ch (21) Jerry Hot, (22) AnthonyW&ner, (23) Beyoncé, (24) Mar5r (26) rod 8;mtr,, (273John Shimpf, 128) ScanHonnit>’,(29) V!odimr Pufin. (30) Donod flywocd, (33) lûm Hnks. (34) Katie Iedecky. (35) Ken Bone, ond (36) Bons ohnson j’ Il L I HectherBresch,(13) Ailes, (19) Lin-Manuel Shkret, (25) Elizobeth Hoim Trump, (31) Mory Berry, (32) Pc’ n Ccchte, (9) 8t1 CIinton (10) Coretta Cynch, (1 1) Cohn Koepernick, (121 - .- ..- . household. theres ther&s a mother and hold her trouble. ti bouse ld: nothing is sourced out- -he’s e in o handle it! Yet through ail that. there’s a enuine sense of love and protection within the house, and yet the words ‘1 love vrai’ are ;iever uttered in the movie. StilI [one ofthe last shots] is just that simple gesture touching the mother for the first time in the movie And in that mo- ment it says aIl you need to know about that relationship . ber. he’s there for hei and that’s iL” Billingsley also emphasizes that the one person who cornes through with the Red Ryder B13 gun is the father. the one person Ralphie neyer asked. The Old Man just knew instinctiveiy what bis son wanted. Bergmann noticed that Clark uses as Ralph- ry much a ibling battie. ving to hold ace. there’s prohabh i ncial fiither’s do-it-vourseifaspect o ics target on Clnistmas morning an old metal siun, partiallv ohscured, that says. cotni AGE It’s the GoLDEN AGE sign that ricochets that BB back at him anci [knocks oflj his glasses and alrnost shoots bis eve out,” Bergrnann expiains. “TaIk about iroiw You only sec that sign, and ifs p ‘11v covered. but I’ve seen uncovered versions of it But e ‘n if our golden age is must’ and oh scured an eing soid on eBa Stori’ nonethel ‘s reflects a golden age. Zack Ward sums it up: ‘xc seen five-vear-old kids squat down in front while they’re watching it. [)v:en, there’s no dancing, no aiking reindeer or snowman. Ifs kids, in a time w vear-old doesn’t care if ifs a littie whi girl. littie black boy or girl. Hispanic. Asian. w ish- —it doesn’t inatter: they don’t care. They’i watching it because that’s their tàmily.” i the moie had changed the holiday-tèel-good : genre forever. Five ycars afier A Clzristnict.s’ Stt)ly together he —if not -- ornebody tvas selling one on eBay.” at oted, A Ghrivtincis mas Ston’ and hlow it up like a rv,JSv’s Thanks- gling Day Parade balloon in,Bc1Santa. So A christnzas Stonyespite Shepherd’s . it telis ou bow that guv loves the TV and not talk ere’s no song from . ‘1 that five oy or Sl1iet Business through Aunt Jemirnas. printmg up fr9nidy offensive catchphrases such as let ol Aun tic sing in yo’ kitchen.’ The Aunt Jeinima on the label today is a composite. a dream of antebellum dornesticitv. the hosomv warmth of Sunday in Dixieland. where Jim cails Huck “honey” as they float down the big river. Why does that tradernark stii exist Probablv because no group has yet tumed its attention to h: #jernimasoracist. Enjoy your view from the Stop & Shop shelf. Aunt Jemima yottr days are nurnbered. Which is what I was thinhng about as I drove across Canada. en route to perhaps the holiest place in siup. America bas its Strategic Petroleum Reserve In flase of embargo, nukes, Mad Max (‘anada bas a Global Strategic Maple Svrup Resrve In case of Butterworth. Jernima, ho knows what. Jemima stands for everything Canadi ans distrust about the planet and the svrup much of it consumes. It’s one of the things FPAQ was organ ized to hattie. Phom svmup and its lies. fake backstories cooked up for Aunt Jemima and hem pal. Mrs. Butterxorth. Caroline Cym, a spokesperson for the federation perfect name for a syrup lady —seemed especialÏv irritated by varieties of what is essentially high-fructose comn syrup, products that of leu decorate their labels with maple trees and log cabins. irnplving a connection to the forest that simply does flot exist. FPÀQ fights with advertising and fancy recipes- Crnstless Vegetable Quiche with Maple Svrup, Crêpes with Kale and Mapie Syrup. Maple-Mmond 64 Nanc Green, OTtXcLG ‘Who’d been a slave in Kentuckv, to play ‘ Aunt Jernima. which she did tiil hem death, in 1923. By the l930s. General Miils, which had ‘ bought the company, had begun to churn PAGE FROM HOcIDAY 2016/2017 VA N www antyfwr com I T Y I R F A 181/,

  6. and sealed in a barre!, forklifted and stacked. Each barrel carnes a label with a grade (Ex tra Light, Light, Medium, Amber, Dark) and percentage. When mapie water exits a maple tree, it’s 2 to 4 percent sugar. As it’s boiled, tIc sugar concentrates. To be syrttp, it must le 66 percent sugar. Below that, it’s not sta ble. Above 69 percent, it tums into something else. Butter. Taffy. Candy. There were two or three guys cniising around on forklifis, in hair nets. “We’re ail waiting for the spning,” Cyr told me, “when this place will be fihled with balTels.” Being in synip is like being a tax ac countant. Tbree or four weeks of intensity fol lowed by months ofwaiting and wondening. I asked Cyr if there’d ever been a spiil. She looked at me like I was a fool. I told her about a molasses spili that liad once srnothered Bos ton’s North End, a wave that upended trees, drove horses mad, and kilied 21. “No,” she said calmly. “We have neyer lad a spifi.” 11e Reserve is a monument to collective planning, to thousands of littie guys each giving up a littie freedorn in return for secu rity. Canadians call this a better life. Amen cans call it socialism. Austrian economist friedrich Hayek might cali it “the Road to Serfdom.” It’s like ail the otler roads in Quebec. Cairn and predictable, without a single Camaro blasting Bon Jovi. or a sticker of a cartoon man flipping you off while pee ing. But it’s lad the perverse effect of pool ing wealth, of creating just the sort of target Wiliie Sutton meant when he supposedly said lie robs banks because that’s where the money is. Cyr encouraged me to lift one oC tIc barrels. I couldn’t budge ut. Imagine try ing to .steal one of those barreis—now imag ine trying to steal 10,000. could be in Tlunder Bay by now! In rnost cases, wlen a boning, bureaucratie job tums interesting, tlere’s trouble. Inspectors called FPAQ HQ and sounded tIc alarm. Just like tlat, the facility was swarming with cops. It was a great rnystery. There were no security cameras. Who would steal syrup? And, even if some sick bastard wanted to, wIat would le carry it away in? How far could le get? TIc investigation was headed by tIc Sûreté du Québec police, winch was soon joined by tIc Royal Mounties and US. Customs. They promised to sparc no expense. These heartless cniminals would le brought tojustice, and the syrup, descnibed as “lot,” would be recov ered. About 300 people were questioned, 40 searcl warrants executed. It was not O.J. and tIc knife. It was not the bearded doctor and one-armed man. But it vas special, strange. Tlere xvas sornething stining about making offwith ail that syrup; it boggled tIc mmd. It feit less like a crime than a prank, wlat you might do to your brother ifyou were ail-powerful and le had a lot of syrup. 0f course it vas sen ous business to FPAQ; ncar!y 540,000 gallons of synup lad becn stolen—12.5 percent of the Reserve—with a street value of $ 13.4 million. It became known as tle Great Maple Syrup Heist and was said to be among the rnost fantastic agricultural crimes ever committed, wlich, granted, is an odd subset. Everyone figured it was people wlo’d donc it—-Tvlartians don’t love SyflLp—but no one could figure otit how. “Try to think up tIc scenario and it’s impossible,” a fniendly hotel waiter told me in Montreal. “Syrup is heavy. And sticky. How do you hide it? Who do you get to smuggle it? Wherc eau you sel it? It’s like stealing tIc sait out oftle sea.” It was most likely an inside job. Not a member of FPAQ—though rogtte syrup pro ducers lave tleir theories—nor a rnanufhc turer, but a tenant who lappened to be rent ing space in thc saine facility. That would mean access: keys, ID card, reason to le there. FPAQ supplied tIc motive. 11e value of the commodity, tIc tight control of sup piy, tlc resulting black rnarket. (In tIc post apocalyptic world, as Mad Mîx runs the gauntlet for petrol, Canucks wili be fighting over those tast precious drops of genuine maple.) Several conspirators were pursued. including alleged ringleaders Avik Caron and Richard Vaffières. Working with a hand ful of others, sorne with knowledge of thc trade, tley apparently vent after the bottnty like Mickey in the Night Kitchen, dreaming tleir dream between rnidnight and dawn, wlen tle world is lalf realized, insubstan tial. According to tIc prosecutor, the gang would truck barrels out of tIc Reserve to a sugar shack where tley wouid siphon tIc syrup in tIc way you siplon gasoline from a semi, fecding it, a cask at a tirne, into their own rarnslackle barrels and tIen re-filling Slieky Business Truffles —but rnostly by controlling the quality and quantity ofthe product. Hence the Reserve. Barrel In H penriitted to send a fixed amount to FPAQ for sale that year, a quota that was established in 2004, even as US. production has exploded (up 27 percent from 2015). Members of the federation—Quebec’s bulk producers are requïred to join—give their harvest over to FPAQ, which inspects, tastes, and grades the syrup. Some of it is sold immediately; the rest is stored in the Reserve. Producers are paid only when the syrup is sold, which can mean years. EPAQ keeps 5540 for each banel, a kind of tax that pays for the advertising, the testing of the recipes, the upkeep of the Re serve, and so on. In this way, the federation steadies supply, filling the coffers in banner years, satisfving dernand in failow. In this way, the price of syrup is stabiized, benefiting even the competitors across the border. The Reserve is in Laurierville, a town in the heart of Quebec. Steeples, snowy roads, luIs, old men in berets eating croissants at McDonald’s. It’s reached via spotless high ways where no one tailgates or cuts you off or honks in anger. It’s just the polite double beep in Quebec. a state of play that seems connected to how most syrup producers have been content to leave the free market for the safety of a cartel. It’s a better life, with less road rage, but also not as colorfut, nor as interesting, and forget about the wind fail and resulting spree. Caroline Cyr met me at the back door of the Reserve and took me on a tour. As I said, it’s the holy of holies, where oceans of syrup, the accumulated wealth of Canadian forests, hibemates, sometirnes for months, sometimes for years. I had a clear mental picture of the Reserve: luge vats, surface crusted and cov ered with ffies; tanks reached by tottering zig gurats; visitors in perpetual danger of falling in and doing the slowest, stickiest, sweetest dead man’s float of ail time. In fact, the Re serve, which might hold 75 million gallons on .a typical day, is a warehouse fiiled with bar rels, white drums stacked from ifoor to ceil ing, nearly 20 feet high. There was a Charles SheeÏer—like quality to the place, an industrial awesomeness, the barrels in endless rows, the irnplied weight ofthem, persnickety and precise in a way that seerns especiaily Canadian. It’s almost like the life we know, but not quite. It’s so close, yet so different. A treasure trove, with inventory, at any given time, worth per haps $185 million. The syrup is tested when it cornes in, tIen sent through a Willie Wonka— esque conveyor system where it’s pasteurized ere’s how it works: there are 13,500 maple syrup producers in Quebec. Each is Inside Job I those July days when the first hint of auturnn cools the northern forest, Michel Gauvreau began bis precanious clirnb up tIc barrels in St.-Louis-de-Blandford, a town outside Laun ervile, wlere part of the Reserve was stored in a rented warelouse. Once a year, FPAQ takes an inventory of the barrels. Gauvreau was near tIc top of the stack when one of the hands teetered, then nearly gave way. “He ai most feU,” Cyr said, pausing to let the picture form. A small man, astride a tower of syrup, realizing, suddenly, there’s nothing beneath bis feet. Normally, weighing more than 600 pounds when ftiled, tIc barrels are sturdy, so something was clearly amiss. \Vhen Gaiivreau knocked on tIc banel, it tolled like a gong. When le unscrewed tIc cap, le discovered it empty. At first, it seemed like this might have been a glitch, a mistake, but soon more punk hands were found—rnany more. Even banels that seemed full lad been emptied of syrup and fihled with water—a sure sign of thieves who’d covered their tracks. My God, tley was the Lufthansa heist of the syrup world. In the summer of 2012, on one of 182 VA N I T Y F A I R www.vanityfcir.com HOLIDAY 2O16/2O7

  7. phone whule looking out at the desert sand and deep-blue sea; glearning storage tanks; ou tankers stacked to the horizon. I was ex pecting something like that from FPAQ. A gleaming tower, walls covered with rnaps, tacks showing the location of each rogue. I instead found myseifin a very non-evil office outside Montreal, standing beside Sirnon Trépaniei the tali, sweetly bearded execu tive director of fPÀQ, who was pointing otit a window, annotating the landscape as if it were a passage in a book. The country around Montreal is strange. As flat as Illinois, extended sunsets, vistas. But here and there motLntains rise without the prelude of foothiils. flat. flat, mountain, flat, flat. A landscape designed by a person with no experience in geology, nor knowledge of tectonic plates. When I asked Trépanier in the originals with water. As the operation grew, the masterminds allegedlybrought on accomplices and begansiphoning the Syrup directly from barrels in the Reserve. Nearly 10,000 barrels of syrup were stolen and trucked to points south and east, where the market is free. So far, prosecutors have brought four men to trial. Ihe case was worked in the textbook way. Chase down every lead, question every wit ness, identify the rjnaleaders. In December 2012, the police arrested two alleged ringlead ers and one other suspect. A large portion of the syrup would ultimately be recovered. It took serious sleuthing. The story of the heist is currently being developed as a movie, star- ring Jason Segel. I don’t know much about the movie, but my guess is the criminals wil be the protagonists. That’s how Hollywood usually does it. But it’s the cops who achieved the mirac ulous. 1f it’s hard to steal syrup, imagine how much harder it is to recover syrup that’s been stolen. Like ou, syrup is a fungible commod ity. Once it’s on the market, it’s just syr up. Oil is oll. Syrup is syrnp. So how did they do it? Gumshoe po licework, retracing the footsteps of the criminals, following their trail through the black rnarket, a trail that lcd past lonely crossroads and out of Quebec. The goods were scattered: some ofit in New Brunswick, which is as loose with synïp as Deadwood was with silver daims; sorne of it across the border in Vermont, stashed in the fàctory of a candv maker who swore he had no goddamn idea the syrup was bot. Several of the crooks have pleaded guilty and have paid fines or are serv ing sentences. Vaffières has pleaded flot guilty to trafficking and fraud. The other alleged ringleader, Avik Caron, lias pleaded flot guilty to theft, conspiracy, and fraud. He allegedlv cooked up the conspiracy and is to go on trial in January. He could get 14 ycars, but that’s in Canadian, so I’m flot exactly sure. syrup really is ou. h’s not man-made, nor invented. Its the land. The people working in the trade are rnerely its enablers, acting as middlernen or agents. No one creates syrttp. When we sat down, Trépanier spoke abotit oil, tefling me the analogy goes only so far. Ou can be found alrnost anywhere on the planet, he said. Sink a drill, you’lI hit it. But maple syrup cornes only from the red- and sttgar maple forests found in the upper right-hand corner of North Arnerica. just where you’d sign your name if this were a test. “Thats why FPAQ is nedessary.” he told me. “If one country stops producing oil, the slack can be picked up by others ail over the world. But if we have a bad season here, you’re going to have a year withottt maple syrup. That’s why the Reserve is so important.” Trépanier handed me n drink box. the kind you pack with lunch. It vas filled with maple water as it comes from the tree, before it’s been boiled into syrup, buttei; taffy. Thick and not quite deli cious, it made me think of the heavy water the Nazis were experimenting with in atternpts to build an A-bomb. I sipped it slowly as Trépanier told me the history of maple syrup, where it cornes from, what it means. In Salem, the Wampanoag In dians taught starv ing British farmers how to bury a fish head beside corn seeds, a natural fer LOCK, STOCK, AND BARRE!. Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers communications officer Caroline Cyr at the Globai Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve, 2015. explain, lie pointed out each rnountain—a chain of peaks, an archipelago, what the Ca ribbean might look like if the plug could be pulled and the sea drained—and said, “Vol canoes. Fxtinct volcanoes. They blew up and died and over time were covered by forests. It’s where the city gets its name. Montreal cornes from Mount Royal.” We stood for a moment, looking. And I got the sense that we were looking at sornething more than a panorama, more than the view to the east. Peaks and forests, gullies and ravines, hollers and hidden places, the sun rising and falling, the earth pitched on its axis, winter giving way to spring, time unraveling from solstice to solstice. We were looking at the seasons. We were looking at syrup. Its why it’s hoiy to French Canadians. They got whipped by the British and have had to live as a minor ity in their country. but they stiil retain the sweet essence of the New World. In this way. tilizer that greatly increased yield. In Quebec. Indians, probably Algonquins, showed French trappers how to tap maple trees and collect the heavy water that the Indians used as baim and elixir. To Canadians, its a story of coop eration. The Indians had the sap but did flot realize its potential until the French brought over the cast-iron pots needed to boil it down. Each side had hali Trépanier explained. When they came together. they made somethmg new. o z Drinking the Forest and the Laiidscape n sorne ways, françois Roberge cornes across as a man in the rnidst of a mania. fis wife. charming, exasperated. and game. seems to think so. He spent part of his child hood on a farm in Quebec but left when lie was barely out of school. He got a job in the lower precincts of the garment trade. then worked his way up. f-le is currently president I z zz The Giving Tree I looks like. Glass and steel; massive desks occupied by sheikhs in flowing robes. kaf fiyehs, and Vuarnets, quoting prices on the don’t know what the home office of opic looks like, but I do know what I think it oo o HO1IDAY 2016/2017 VA NI T Y FA I R 183 www.vonilyfair.com

  8. operations. One cranks out underwear, ted dies, sexy garments, swirnwear. The other cranks out syntp. Fifty-four barrels last year, boiled off and loaded up and sent into the world. During the season, he’s at bis desk in Montreal from six titi noon, then in lis car, barreling down those super-polite highways, then in the woods. working the unes. He led me through bis forest, which was as white and pristine as a forest in a story book, crossed by a river that tritimphed in a waterfall. He wore rubber boots and a heavy coat and rnoved fast, smiling as he talked. He showed me the network of tubes that suck sap from the trees like poison from a snakebite. He explained the process, how the tubes carry sap to a tank where excess water is drained away, and how what’s left contin ues on to the sugar shack. We sat in a warm room in back of the shack, the pasteboard walls covered with mounted animal heads. which I contemplated—is that a wolver ine’?—as he loaded me with the products of bis operation. Taffy. Butter. Little maple-leaf candies you stop eating only when you feel iii. We taiked about rogue prodticers, wild carters angry at the cartel. I-le thought a mo ment, then said, “But, you know, when you get into the politics, it’s easy to forget what this is ail about.” He Ied me to the barntike main room of bis facility, where he stood beside a gleaming stainless-steet machine that cooks maple water down to 66 percent sugar. It was being tended to by a master, Roberge’s mentor. Friendly and warm, the master explained everything in a language I don’t understand, but by following lis ges tures and eyes I could see where the water came in and how it worked its way through the pipes and tanks, exiting into a bowi as syrup. Roberge poured me a glass. Golden, blond. I waited for it to cool, then sipped slowly, as if it were 20-year-old scotch. It went to rny head in the same way, delicious and pure. Like drinking the forest. the land scape. Roberge filled several jugs for me, the ftrst batch of the season. They were stili warm when I got back to Montreal. D Sticks Bttsiness and C.E.O. of La Vie en Rose, a Canadian lingerie cornpany akin to Victoria’s Secret. More than a dozen years ago, at the insis tence ofbis kids, Robeige bought a chalet on one ofthose odd peaks outside Montreat. As he does flot especially like to ski, he began to cast about for sometbing to do while bis farnily was off on the siopes. In this casting about, he rernembered that, when he vas on the farm, he enjoyed chopping down trees. for Roberge, felling a fat trunk was like hit ting a perfect tee shot. He bought a stretch of forest near the chalet, then went to work with chain saw and ax. There was an operating sugar shack aiready on the grounds, which was fine with Roberge. His only change vas to paint the shack pink, a nod to La Vie en Rose, which means seeing life in pink. He quicldy became interested in the works. Then more than just interested. By the time I met Roberge, he vas heading two major kiiii Kaiclasliian WTest the University of Paris, Sorbonne, studying se- miotics and speech analysis. “ According to what Abdulrahman told Entertaimnent Tonight, three men appeared at the glass door of the Hôtel de Pourtaiès. Abdulrahman, thinldng their ail-black garb indicated they were French police, opened the door, and qttickly there was a pistol at bis back and cuifs on bis wrists. ‘Where are the secunty cameras?” one of them asked, to which Abdulrahman respond- ed that there weren’t any. “Are you kidding me?” the thief replied, then asked liow rnany rooms w’ere in the hotel, and if any had safè Told there were li residences, the robber “Oh, that is nice—we wifl do them ai “They were not professional at rab ‘in added of the thieves vhose ages lie estimat as between 40 conftised. were me, Don’t pal e’re here for rnoney.” They inqu d out Kanye West. “I told him, ‘Th apper is upset ike, Don’t play n, the wife of the rapper, night receptionist. The robbers decided to hit the S house first, where Kim vas awake in bed a white batlirobe, alone. Her longtime body- guard, Pascal Duvier. who bad been at lier side throughout Fashion Week, liad been sent off to guard Kourtney and their haif-sister, Kendail Jenner, at LArc Paris, a nightciub that doesn’t get started until after one A.M. him open it with a key from the front desk. Kim heard someone in the suite and asked, HeUo?” But nobody replied. Two-t1fe burst in. As she screamed, one.f1hem pulled ber out ofbed. “FIe attacked her,)6lding bis gun in ber face,” Abdulrahm)6has said. “She was cry ing, she was scp(ming, saying, Don’t kil me. I havebabiesn’t ‘‘me, please, I have babies! frn am!Take whatever you want! She was we a wbite bathrobe and her hair was tied u o the Huffington Post. obtained by TMZ. said that both Kim and the concierge “believed they might be kffled at any moment.” Now the night receptionist became hos tage, negotiator, and transiator. “I tried to cairn lier because the guy was crazy,” Abdui rahman told Entertainnient Toizight. “He was screaming, and atso Kim was screaming, and lie told me to shut up. I told lier, ‘Shut up, shut up. ptease cairn down.’” “When I tried to cairn lier, she asked me, ‘Are we going to die?” lie said. “I told lier. ‘I don’t know.” “D ‘argent! D‘ai-gent! D‘argent!” the thieves demanded: Soine nioney! Sanie monev! Some inoney! But Kardashian West liad only around $ , “Sh beiieved that lie was there for the ring,” Ab lrahman told Inside Edition, and she bande one of tliern lier 20-karat diamond ring. “He tomimed tlie thief exam’ missivelyl and said, it’s nice, in bis pocket. The thieves bound Kim’s wrists and an- kies, repeatediy asking lier for money. After . ‘ A letter from lier attorney Martin Singer . —\ t 5 6 receptio Sifled C O N T I N U F D F R O M the tetter with a pseudonym: “The Night. Tbe letter went around the world, but wit no apparent response from Kim. So Niebt,” a 39-year-old man from northem Alge- ria, wlio would later say he had “lived througli the Algerian terrorist period” and was familiar with the horrors of death and mayhem, went public, using oniy the name Abdufrahman. He left bis job and did several interviews, wbich, I was toÏd, by French law he had the right to do, since lie was also a victim oftbe crime, P A G E . id, ‘ The ,“ Abdul- ri 50. “Tliey were rovising. . . They totd . here,’ and lie was me like this. I ‘ recalied the Au Voleur! ent- I media was the enormous amot uiations, whicb did flot s that they were directe inciting the incide Abdulrah didn’t wo9c directiy for the liotel but for a securitynterprise. which works at the hotel, but geçerally speaking it is my principal work- place. i aiso work in severai other important locations in Paris. I am a doctoral srndent at n an interview with me, Abdutrahm orated: “Wbat pusbed me to g elab- efore the offalse spec- p, and especially Kim, accusing lier of or insurance purposes.” n explained to me that 1 O in euros. es it like this [lie pan g the ring, dis “ and put it lie wooden door to the suite had a single lock, no boit. The thieves “marclied” tbe nigbt receptionist to the door “by the scruif of lis neck,” according to tlie Mail, and made 1$ 1 VA N I T Y F A R I wwwonityfair.com HOLIDAY 2016/2017

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