June Kettlewell sits in the sugar house behind her Montpelier property, surrounded by stainless steel evaporators that haven't fired up yet this March. Outside, it's 52 degrees—warm enough that the maple trees aren't cycling between freeze and thaw, which means no sap flow, which means no syrup season. Or at least not yet. Maybe next week. Maybe not until April. The uncertainty has become the only constant.
Kettlewell moved to Vermont from Phoenix in November 2024, one of thousands of climate migrants who relocated during the pandemic-era wave that transformed the state's demographics. She was a middle school science teacher who'd spent twenty-two Arizona summers watching her electricity bill triple and her outdoor recess periods shrink. Vermont promised cooler temperatures, abundant water, and seasons that still resembled seasons. She retrained as a maple syrup producer through a state agricultural program designed to absorb the influx of climate migrants into Vermont's traditional industries.
Eleven years later, she's still here. But the Vermont she moved to isn't.
You're not making syrup yet?
Not yet. We need consistent freeze-thaw cycles—below freezing at night, above freezing during the day. That's what creates the pressure differential that makes sap flow. But we've had... [gestures vaguely at the thermometer] ...this. Forties at night, fifties during the day. The trees are just sitting there, confused. We're all confused.
When I started in 2026, we tapped in late February and ran through mid-March, like clockwork. Now? Last year we didn't start until April 2nd and finished April 11th. Nine days. You know how many trees I have tapped right now, waiting? Twelve hundred. You know how much it costs to maintain this operation while you wait for weather that may or may not cooperate?
[pauses, softens]
Sorry. I'm not usually this bitter. It's just that this was supposed to be the stable thing. The thing I moved here for.
Take me back to 2024. What made you leave Phoenix?
The smoke, initially. The heat was terrible—we hit 115 degrees for a month straight that summer—but it was the wildfire smoke from California and New Mexico that really did it. I taught seventh-grade science, and we couldn't do outdoor activities from June through September. The kids were getting nosebleeds indoors. I was checking air quality indexes before I'd check the weather.
But honestly? I could see where it was going. Every year was worse than the last. Every year, my friends and I would joke about moving to Vermont or Minnesota or wherever, and then one day I stopped joking. I looked at the climate models—I'm a science teacher, I knew how to read them—and I thought, "I'm forty-three. If I'm going to restart somewhere else, I need to do it now."
Vermont kept showing up in these "climate haven" articles1. Cooler temperatures, plenty of water, fewer disasters. And maple syrup! I'd never made anything with my hands professionally, but there was something appealing about learning a trade that was literally rooted in place. Something that couldn't be outsourced or automated. Something seasonal and rhythmic.
[laughs]
The irony is not lost on me.
What was the transition like?
Harder than I expected in some ways, easier in others. The state had this program—they still do, actually, though it's more competitive now—that helped climate migrants get into agriculture. Six months of training, microgrants for equipment, mentorship from established producers. I sold my house in Phoenix, which had somehow appreciated despite everything, and bought this property with twelve acres of sugar maples.
The work itself I liked. It was the social stuff that got complicated. Vermonters are polite but distant. There's this thing where they'd ask where I was from, and I'd say Phoenix, and they'd get this look. Not hostile, exactly. Just this slight withdrawal. Like, "Oh, another one."
By 2026, Vermont's population had grown by 8% in two years2. Most of us were climate migrants from the Southwest or the Southeast. Housing prices went insane.
There were these town meetings where people would stand up and talk about how their kids couldn't afford to live in the towns they grew up in anymore. And they weren't wrong! But also, where were we supposed to go?
I remember this one woman—she ran the general store—who told me, "We wanted more young people here. We just didn't want them all at once, and we didn't want them to be rich." I wasn't rich! I'd been a public school teacher! But I'd sold a house in Phoenix and bought one here, so in her eyes, I was part of the problem.
When did you realize Vermont's climate was changing too?
[long pause]
I knew intellectually before I moved. I'd read the projections. But there's knowing and then there's knowing.
The first year, 2026, was perfect. Textbook sugaring season. I made 200 gallons of syrup and felt like I'd figured something out about life. The second year was good too, though we had one weird warm spell in late February that cut the season short by a week.
But by 2029, 2030, the patterns were getting erratic. We'd have January thaws that would start the trees budding too early, then a hard freeze that would damage them. Or we'd have perfect sugaring weather in December—December!—but you can't tap then because the trees aren't dormant yet. The whole thing depends on this very specific seasonal rhythm, and that rhythm is unraveling.
Last year, one of my neighbors—fourth-generation sugarmaker—just stopped. Sold his equipment, leased his land to a solar developer. He told me, "I can't plan for this anymore. I can't teach my kids a trade that might not exist in twenty years."
But you're still here.
[laughs ruefully]
I'm still here. Where else would I go? Back to Phoenix? That's not even a real option anymore—I mean, people still live there, but it's not the city I left. My sister's still there, and she tells me about the rolling blackouts every summer, the water restrictions, the insurance situation. At least here I have water. At least here I'm not worried about my house burning down.
But also, I've built a life. I know my neighbors now, even the ones who were skeptical at first. I've got a partner—she moved here from Charleston in 2027. We've got this community of climate migrants who all chose Vermont for similar reasons, and we're all dealing with similar disappointments, and there's something bonding about that.
And the work itself—even when the season's short, even when it's unpredictable—there's still something deeply satisfying about it. Tapping the trees, collecting sap, boiling it down, bottling it. It's real. It's tangible. I spent twenty years teaching about science, and now I'm living it.
What do you wish you'd known in 2024?
[thinks for a long moment]
That climate change doesn't stop at state borders? [laughs] No, but seriously—I wish I'd understood that there's no such thing as a climate haven, not really. There are places that are relatively better or worse, but nowhere is safe, and nowhere stays the same.
I also wish I'd known how much I'd lose by leaving. Not just the obvious stuff—friends, familiarity, my career. But the smell of creosote after rain. The way the mountains looked at sunset. The specific quality of light in the desert. I didn't realize how much of my identity was tied to place until I left it.
And I wish someone had told me that adaptation isn't something you do once. It's continuous. I adapted by moving to Vermont. Then I adapted by learning a new trade. Now I'm adapting to that trade becoming less viable. At some point you're just adapting to adaptation. It's exhausting.
Do you regret moving?
[long pause, looks out the window at the sugar maples]
No. But I regret that I had to. I regret that we're all having to make these impossible choices—stay and suffer, or leave and lose everything you know. I regret that my nieces and nephews in Phoenix are growing up thinking 115 degrees in summer is normal. I regret that Vermont is changing so fast that the people who've been here for generations feel like they're losing their home too.
But do I regret my specific choice to move here? No. I'm alive. I'm healthy. I have a life I mostly enjoy, even when the sap won't run. That's more than a lot of people can say.
[pauses]
Ask me again in ten years though. If the maple season disappears entirely, if Vermont summers start hitting 95 regularly, if the next wave of climate migrants shows up from New York and Boston... I don't know. Maybe there's another move in my future. Maybe we're all just temporary now.
What's your plan for this season?
Wait. Watch the weather. Hope for a cold snap. I've got everything ready to go—the taps are in, the lines are checked, the evaporator's clean. When the sap runs, I'll be ready.
And if it doesn't? I've been talking to some other producers about diversifying. Maybe we start a cooperative, pool our resources, do some value-added products—maple candy, maple cream, maple bourbon. Maybe I go back to teaching part-time, though the schools here are overwhelmed with climate migrant kids and there's a waiting list for positions.
Or maybe I just accept that I moved to Vermont for stability and found uncertainty instead, and that's just what life is now, everywhere. You make your plans, you do your best, and you adapt when the weather doesn't cooperate.
[looks at thermometer again]
Supposed to drop to 28 tonight, though. Maybe tomorrow morning we'll see some flow.