Woman Hiking in Woods With Grandma 'Very Confused' by Sign They Stumble On
Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content.
A woman was left scratching her head at a sign she came across while hiking with her grandmother in a New Hampshire forest.
Aurora was out near Coit Mountain in Newport when she came across a laminated picture stapled to a tree that had them both baffled. "We honestly were very confused," Aurora told Newsweek. "We had never seen anything like this, and took a picture of it to ask about later."
The sign presented a photograph of a can of maple syrup being poured onto a plate of what appears to be French toast. There were no words to accompany what was shown, leaving Aurora and her grandma clueless as to what it meant.
Fortunately, Aurora knew exactly where to turn to for an answer: social media. "I usually go to Reddit to see if anyone knows and because I love the community," she said.
Posting under the handle u/GayFurryThing, she posted the picture alongside a question asking: "What is this that my grandma and I found while hiking?"
A sign found in a work in Newport, New Hampshire.
A sign found in a work in Newport, New Hampshire.
u/GayFurryThing
Social media platforms like Reddit are popular because they help people to achieve a sense of social connection in what is an increasingly fragmented world.
A 2016 study published in the Journal of Computer Information Systems detailed an experiment in which researchers observed a large sample size of students from a U.S. university as they engaged with Facebook.
They found that the more these platforms helped users connect positively with others, the happier and more satisfied they felt about their social media use.
Aurora's experience is a case in point. Initially befuddled by the sign she came across hiking, by reaching out online she was able to get the help she needed from several Reddit users who appeared to have knowledge of what the sign meant.
"It is for a local sugar shack near the hiking trail," Aurora said. "It's a place where they make tons of maple syrup and usually sell it along with other things."
This was confirmed in a series of comments left under the Reddit post, which earned over 1,800 upvotes. "I think it's a poster used in a guided sugarshack tour," one wrote.
Another concurred: "It's a hut where they boil the sap to make maple syrup. Often seasonally open for educational purposes / tours (usually February / March). Part of the New England kid trifecta of school field trips: sugar shack, cider press, and dairy farm."
Though there was a logical answer, plenty shared Aurora's sense of confusion at the sign. "I thought that was a can of baked beans," one said. "Maple syrup in a can?!? Say what?" another wrote, with a third adding: "Wait. What? I've lived in New Hampshire my entire life and have never seen syrup in a can. Where are you getting cans of maple syrup?!"
A fourth concurred: "I grew up in New York, and this is my first time ever seeing maple syrup in a can."
While the debate over maple syrup in cans rages on, Aurora can be content knowing that, should she come across a similar sign on another hike, she, and plenty of other people on the internet, will now know what it means.
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