Seven-year-old Marie, wading through snow up to her knees, squealed in delight at one of Santa’s helpers: “Elf, elf, come here. I found my Christmas tree!”

The elf, who was actually a 20-year-old red-haired man in a pointed hat and colourful tunic, smartly chopped down a two-metre bushy evergreen with a handsaw.

He was just one of several elves at Plantations Fernet, a sprawling tree farm in Saint-Cuthbert in Quebec’s countryside, some 100 kilometres north of Montreal.

The farm is a winter wonderland that creates holiday magic for thousands of families eager to enjoy a tractor-pulled hay ride into the snow-covered forest to pick their ideal Christmas tree.

The elves then invite the children and their parents into a century-old wood cabin to warm up amid the glow and crackle of logs burning in a cast iron stove.

Those with hearty appetites head to a huge barn for vegetable soup, pancakes and sausages smothered in maple syrup.

Others enjoy the sugar shack, where boiling hot sugar is poured onto the snow for kids to roll up on maple-covered popsicles – so called “sugar on snow.”

All this entertainment is part of an effort over the last decade to boost business on the tree farms through diversification.

Thanks to its notoriously cold winters, Canada has long been known for its prized coniferous trees, in particular its Balsam firs – the most popular species of Christmas tree in North America.

At the beginning of the century, nearly two million Canadian Christmas trees were sold every year to the US and Mexico.

In recent years, however, industry competition and a strong Canadian dollar have pushed down exports from 1.8 million in 2008 to 1.7 million in 2009. And more and more North Americans are now buying artificial trees made in China. According to Statistics Canada, Canadians imported 44 million dollars worth of artificial trees in 2007.

For many Canadians there is nothing sweeter at Christmas time than the smell of a freshly cut Balsam fir in the living room.