Loggers' Olympics: Axes fly at annual woodsman competition
By TRISTAN SCOTT of the Missoulian
Watch a video of woodsmen - and women - at work
All manner of woodfolk gathered Saturday to cap off a week of logging sports that featured lumber Jacks and Jills shimmying up 50-foot poles and splitting bull's eyes with flying axes.
Over the last week, the University of Montana's Woodsman Team hosted the regional Association of Western Forestry Clubs Conclave in and around Missoula, segments of which aired on ESPNU, which specializes in college sports.
It took Stacy Smith of the University of Montana Woodsman Team: little time to power her way through her log in the vertical speed chop event Saturday at the 2008 Pro/Am and Forestry Days at Fort Missoula. Smith had the fastest time in her heat. Photo by MICHAEL GALLACHER/Missoulian
Since February, UM team members have practiced their chopping, sawing, climbing and throwing skills weekly in preparation for the annual spring logging competition they've hosted for the past 30 years. In all, 11 college teams - around 120 students from a seven-state Western region - competed in the amateur division on Saturday at Fort Missoula, as did a hard-core group of some 50 professional competitive loggers who battled it out in their own professional division.
“It's a good opportunity to help the kids work on their technique,” said professional chopper Carson Bosworth, of Lake Geneva, Wis., who placed second in the “underhand chop” event. “It's all about timing and technique, and a little bit of strength.”
The underhand, or horizontal chop, features a competitor who stands atop a 2-foot-long horizontally positioned wooden block and, with a 6-pound ax, chops halfway through the front, then turns around and finishes chopping through the back. Time stops when the block is completely severed, though the emphasis is on accuracy, as the ax falls just inches from from a competitor's feet.
“That's why I have nine toes,” Bosworth said as he removed a pair of wire mesh chopping guards from around his feet. Bosworth, who has been competing for 34 years, since he was 8 years old, managed to lop off a digit some years ago.
Jennifer Benedict and Whitney Sisk, the co-captains of UM's Woodsman Team, lauded their teammates' performances over the past week, and Sisk said she was especially proud to have placed well against the team's rivals from the University of Idaho.
Pat Johnson, a junior at UM, placed fourth out of 10 competitors in the venerable Stihl Timbersports Collegiate Series Western Saturday morning, securing a solid hold just one place ahead of Idaho.
Throughout the daylong event, the Historical Museum fired up its 1917 steam engine in order to power an old-time sawmill, and families climbed into a forest fire lookout at the logging center.
Other onlookers surrounded the arena to watch the games and competitive traditions of an early-century logging camp, to which the modern-day brand of timbersports pay homage - many of the events that make up a logger sports competition originated in old-time logging camps, where lumberjacks would test their skills against one another for entertainment.
“The history is pretty rich,” Bosworth said.
