Sugaring had been a bucolic springtime activity, replete with priests sprinkling the sugar bush with holy water to help the run of sap, horse-drawn sleds to gather sap from the maple trees, and eager families gathered in the sugar shack around the billowing steam from the evaporator, happy to taste the sweet elixir of spring. But as the maple syrup industry evolved, it crashed into the industrial realities of the twentieth century, and here our story veers pell-mell into the world of big business, market capitalism, razor-thin margins, predatory monopolistic enterprises, technical innovation and industrial expansion, arson, rebellion, and theft—all set against the backdrop of unpredictable weather.