Fred's Sugar Shack

Fred Fernald has been tending maple trees and boiling down sap this spring as he has for nearly every spring of his 70-plus years. Here a sap bucket collects a slow steady flow of maple sap while smoke from Fred's Sugar Shack in the background provides evidence that sugaring is taking place. And (bottom right), Fred heads off toward the woodpile for another barrowful of kindling. Fred's a busy man when the sap is running at his place in East Conway. He said [in 1984] this was one of the earliest sugaring seasons he's ever seen.