Wayne Pelton and his team of Belgian draft horses unload newly collected sap as smoke and steam rises from a wood fired evaporator at their old fashioned sugar bush camp in Burritts Rapids, Ontario, Canada, 03 April 2014. Pelton's day starts with an early morning feed of his two blonde Belgian draft horses who have both worked his sugar bush for over 20 years. The 70-year-old farmer who has been making maple syrup every year his whole life flits over the thin crust of frozen snow carrying two one gallon pails of sap to his horse sleigh. The horses haul the 1,200 pounds (550Kg) of the collected sap through the snow to the sugar shack where his wife Janet keeps a wood fire going under the evaporator until all of the days sap is boiled down into pure maple syrup. The annual maple syrup season marks the end of the often brutal central Canadian winters and heralds the beginning of spring. The maple tree, whose leaf dominates the Canada's flag, plays both a symbolic and practical role in the identity of Canadians who produce around 95 percent of the world's supply of maple syrup. (Photo by Stephen Morrison/EPA)
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