New Hampshire Maple Museum

Bethlehem, New Hampshire

Much of the museum is the collection of Charlie Stewart (1929-2006), a syrup farmer who spent his life collecting old sap buckets, yokes, maple candy molds, spouts, tubing, taps, and tin syrup containers. His life's dream was that it be displayed in a museum, and the New Hampshire Maple Producers Association was glad to oblige. The museum is part of its effort to boost New Hampshire's maple syrup bona-fides relative to rival Vermont, which currently produces over ten times as much of the sticky breakfast treat.

Visitors can hang a bucket, hoist a yoke, pretend to boil sap, or just study the workings of the museum's operational sugar house. Outside, and somehow related, is "The Stumpy Village" -- a photo-op where you can stand among several white-painted stumps decorated to resemble anorexic snowmen.