The Last Frontier Mailbag

A letter from Dale Whitfield, a third-generation maple syrup maker in Cabot, Vermont — written during the last week of February, when the sap is finally running and the sugar shack fills with steam from before sunrise to past dark. Dale writes about the 40-gallon-to-one math of boiling, the smell that never washes out of his jacket, what the woods sound like at four in the morning, and the particular loneliness and joy of a season that lasts maybe six weeks, if you're lucky.

A Montana Forest Service fire lookout writes home from a 14-foot cab perched above the Bitterroot. What's it like to spend five months alone on a mountain, watching for smoke, rationing propane, and calling your wife on a radio-telephone that the whole ranger district can hear? This letter tells you.