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Making maple sugar

Watercolour by Bainbridge, Making Maple Sugar, Lower Canada, (around 1837). Under a rudimentary shelter (trunks/branches), two large cauldrons boil over a fire. Figures in winter clothing handle buckets and tools. Right: large wooden barrel. Background: forest of slender maples.

Making Maple Sugar, Lower Canada, around 1837, Philip John Bainbridge. Library and Archives Canada, 1988-10-3, Public Domain.

The image shows a wooden sugar shack with a sloped roof. Several people are busy with various tasks related to maple syrup production. Two large cauldrons are suspended over an open fire, where the syrup is boiling. To the left, a person carries buckets of maple sap to the cauldrons. To the right, another person cuts wood to fuel the fire. Another man pours maple sap into a large wooden barrel.