BUCKFIELD — The sun reflected off the snowy, white field next to Buckfield Junior-Senior High School, where the sugar shack and surrounding area was a flurry of activity late Monday morning in preparation for Maine Maple Sunday.

Juniors and seniors in Caleb McNaughton’s TECH science class were busy chopping, sawing and stacking wood for the boiler, which can evaporate about seven gallons of syrup in one hour. Others created benches from raw wood, and a group of four girls was in charge of cleaning out the wooden syrup house built by students a year earlier.

This is the first time the high school is a stop on the statewide Maine Maple Sunday. The event runs from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Buckfield Junior-Senior High School, 160 Morrill St., and will include outdoor activities, sap house tours and refreshments for sale. It’s recommended that attendees wear boots because the event will be held outside.

Before heading out to the sugar shack, McNaughton spent about five minutes inside the high school giving students an update on the maple sugaring season thus far and divvying up tasks to get things ready for Sunday’s debut.

“(The sap’s) not running real well,” he said. “Obviously, the cold weather is keeping things frozen.” He said about one gallon of sap was collected in the early morning and he expected another five or so gallons to be collected throughout the day.

It takes roughly 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup, depending on the sugar content, McNaughton said. So far this season — which started late — the class has collected between 16 and 17 gallons of sap. He wanted to do a boil on Wednesday but said they would hold off until Sunday if they hadn’t collected 80 gallons by then.

Then it was time for the students to gather their equipment for various small projects and head to the sugar house, which makes a perfect outdoor classroom. Outside, senior Brendan Arris was busy with junior Connor Dillon on the two-man crosscut saw, cutting deep lines into logs hauled out from the woods beyond. This is the first year this type of saw has been used in the class, McNaughton said.

“It allows them a chance to work with their hands, and teamwork,” he said of the maple sugaring project.

In between sawing logs and kicking the wood apart, Arris, who is the teacher’s aide for the class, said he was one of the students who helped decide last year that the class would build a sugar shack with the $4,500 grant from the Perloff Family Foundation.

“I like it because it’s an outdoors class,” he said. “It’s easy for me to learn hands-on. And maple syrup is just amazing. I was always told it’s a really hard process, but just the time you have to put into it (makes it tough).”

Junior Tucker Curran-Strout echoed his classmate’s sentiments as he split wood into smaller pieces, wielding the ax with ease.

“I like actually going outside for a period in the day instead of being stuck behind a desk. … And it’s good exercise,” he said, adding that he also enjoys the garden students take care of in warmer weather.

Junior Nick Cates said that he became involved with the maple sugaring project last year as a sophomore after begging McNaughton to let him join.

“It’s definitely a class kids are looking forward to,” Cates said. “Yeah, it’s cold out here, (but) we go snowshoeing. We all joke around with each other.”

The duo began tackling how to best store the sap, some of which is collected on the property of Colleen and Eric Halse at the corner of High Street and Loring Hill Road. They did some research and met many nights after school, until Cates came up with a design for a ladder and platform for a 50-gallon, gravity-fed drum. It has a line going directly inside the sugar shack to pour the sap into the boiler. He figured this was the most cost-effective way, since they don’t have to worry about having to run a pump and electricity at night. There are solar panels that power the sugar shack, but there was a problem with the wiring last year.

“That’s what happens when you have students doing it and not professionals,” Cates said, laughing.

Senior Kerseyanne Goyette said she wasn’t looking forward to taking McNaughton’s TECH science class when she signed up for it, but now it’s “probably” her favorite class.

“I have enjoyed everything he has given us,” she said. “I think it’s fun and cool to learn something new.”

She added, “I feel like I could use these skills in my life.” 

McNaughton said students in the class will design spaghetti bridges, paper cars and rockets come spring.

“This is an opportunity for them to solve problems themselves,” he said.

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