Sullivan County Fall Festival

I attended the Sullivan County Fall Festival in central Pennsylvania this past weekend to observe a lumberjack competition.  My wife and I arrived early in the day to the sound of chain saw artisans creating bears and other wildlife from pine logs and took our seats in the front row of the Lumberjack arena.  There was no assigned seating and there was a collegial atmosphere as the contestants formed a rough circle in front of us to discuss the rules of the Ax Throw.  Men (primarily) and women of all shapes and sizes exchanged smiles and small talk as the event started.  The Ax Throw is performed at a distance of 20 feet.  The thrower uses a a double edged ax with a head that weighs at least 2.5 pounds and a handle that measures no less than 24" and no more than 48".  The target is a slice of log mounted on a rough-hewn tripod.  Control and focus determined success in this event.  Some guys whipped the ax, which was impressive but they were no more accurate than the Jacks and Jills who lofted it gently at the target and nailed the bull's eye.

The next event I had seen on The Wide World of Sports as a kid.  The Spring Board Chop is one of the most impressive feats I have witnessed in sport.  In advance of the start the Jack measures up 38" from the ground along a nine foot vertical pole and chips away the bark to reveal the curve and grain of the log.   He does this in an attempt to locate the most favorable section of wood to receive the first of two planks which will be driven into the log so that he can stand on them.  In the competition he will ideally make four cuts into the wood with his ax in order to place a 5' long board.  He will then launch himself onto this horizontal board in order to do the exact same thing 40" above this first plank, so that he can then chop through a basswood block (12" in diameter) that he has anchored to the top of the log.

The logger must skin the log, measure and mark where his cuts will be to receive the plank and attach the basswood block before the competition starts.  This preparation takes about forty five minutes and the block at the top must be secured in a such a way that it will not come off as it is being chopped otherwise the competitor will be disqualified.

While this was taking place axes were flying in close proximity to Jacks who were being carted around standing on top of the hyper extended buckets of BobCats, or on ladders, affixing their blocks to the top of their logs. I love this sport!  Roaring chain saws, the smell of fresh cut wood, axes flying through the air and a one armed judge.

The real fun began when the spring boarders were ready to go.  The timers were ready, the call was given, and the jacks with their razor sharp Australian axes went to town.  Wood chips burst from the standing poles, planks went in, jacks sprang to their first boards, they powered through their next cuts, slammed in their second boards, jumped to their planks and proceeded to cut through their top blocks hacking away six feet above the ground.  Cutting from two sides is mandatory, meaning a jack must at some point chop from his weaker side. How long does this take?  The world record for this event was clocked at 32.77 seconds!  Safety gear for this discipline consists of sneakers and black pants (Carharts).  No one wore goggles, helmets or gloves and hats were optional.

Many of the competitors looked the part, but one looked like a stock broker and another like a professor of literature.  There were several husband and wife teams for the Jack and Jill events (Jack-n-Jill Crosscut competition), entire families competed and the youngest and oldest professional lumberjacks at the event (19 and 69 respectively) shared opposite ends of a six foot crosscut saw.

This is what sport used to be.  In lumberjack competitions, activities of daily living and of human survival have been raised to an art form.  The tools are minimal (but expensive and sharp), uniforms are basic, there is camaraderie, nature and egalitarianism.  Men and women competed together and in their own divisions which demonstrated that skill and determination were just as important as testosterone.  In the Log Rolling competition women fared better than big guys by anticipating the direction of the roll while many of the men tried to muscle the course of the log .

Our tickets were seven bucks a piece at the gate, we could have stayed all day, you could come and go as you pleased and the professional loggers were ten feet from our seats.  There was no ten dollar beer by the glass, instead there was homemade soda for sale (for seven dollars you got the soda and the tin cup).  There was an abundance of food and numerous crafts.  It was refreshing to see skilled athletes who had day jobs doing what they loved.  There was a time when attending a professional baseball game was like this but those days are gone.  Corporate sponsors enable these timber events to continue but I hope that the spirit of the games is not chipped away by greed (I couldn't help myself).