February 28, 2024 • 50 mins
34-year-old Business and Marketing Professional, from Wisconsin, Samantha LaSalle, is also a female lumberjack, otherwise referred to as a “Lumberjill”. Samantha is the Marketing Specialist for Timberworks Lumberjack Shows, and is the Event Manager for the “Lumberjack World Championships”, which will celebrate its 64th anniversary this year.
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FOURCY Radio. Welcome to outdoors peoplewith me. Cw Getz and her Maya
mar Zaki. Good evening. It'sWednesday, February twenty eighth, twenty twenty
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four ends, and it's a beautifulsunny day here in So Paulo, Brazil,
like Alis with twenty two degrees celsiusfor the free world and for you
guys the United States, it iseighty three degrees fahrenheit and tonight I'm flying
solo, so wish me look guysand look for you as well, that
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we'll put up with my accent.So let's meet tonight. Guest twenty four
years old, business and marketing professionalfrom Wisconsin, Samantalasaul is also a female
lumberjack, otherwise referred to as alumber jill. Samantha is a marketing specialist
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for chamber Works Lumberjacks shows and theevent manager from the Lumberjack World Championship,
which will celebrate its sixty fourth anniversarythis year. Ye Angel with that,
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welcome Samantha. Thank you. Ifthat video doesn't get you excited to talk
about lumberjack sports, but I don'tknow. Well I'm excited now. Oh
my gosh, I got really excited. I was going to say that that's
Sophie. Now, that's crazy.I love it. It's very nice,
it's very unique. If you haven'tseen it before, a lot of people
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just see that and they're instantly intrigued. Right, yes, right, I
saw it out on television, butI didn't know that, but like real,
like you do it? Yes,yes, that's so cool. And
how did you get started being alumber jill? Yeah? So I grew
up right here in Hayward hosted theLumberjack World Championships in Wisconsin, and my
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mom was the manager at what wecall Lumberjack Bowl, Historic Lumberjack Bowl.
So rather than signing me up forsoccer camp like a lot of kids do
when they're younger. She signed meup for law growing school when I was
five, So I spent the summersdown there while growing with my friends,
doing a little bit of swimming whenI was younger, and I just stuck
with it. You know, asyou get older and you move out of
the amateur ranks and into the proranks, you kind of are also going
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through high school and college and makingthat transition into adulthood, and you have
to decide is this something I reallywant to commit to? And I did,
and I love it, and I'mso happy I stuck with it,
and it's just been a passion ofmine since I was five. Oh,
I can't tell why. That's verycool. Yeah, and let's have you
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give us a little background about theLumberjack Road Championship. Yeah. So this
summer will be our sixty fourth annualcompetition. In a nutshell, The Lumberjack
World Championships is a three day internationalcompetition held right here in Hayward, Wisconsin
and showcasing some of the best choppers, sawyers, speed climbers, lag rollers,
and boom runners from across the world. We have over ten thousand spectators
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that we see throughout the three days, and we have over seventy thousand dollars
in prize money for our athletes.It is just rich in history. You
know. It started in nineteen sixtythat actually was started by a local man
named Tony Wise, And if you'refrom the Hayward area, he's a very
familiar name around here. He wasa Hayward Vet, our Hayward native.
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Excuse me. He was an Armyvet World War Two. He got his
NBA from Harvard University and he movedback to the Hayward area in nineteen forty
seven actually, and his goal wasto kind of revive the Hayward area and
make it a destination place for peoplefrom the Chicago and Twin Cities area.
And he thought, what can Ido to get people to come here?
And he kind of had three thingson his mind. He wanted to start
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a ski resort, he wanted tostart a giant cross country ski race.
And he had this idea of HistoryLand and the Lumberjack World Championships. And
he successfully did all of them.You know. He started the American Burgerbinder
Ski Rights, he started History Landand the lumbers World Championships, and he
started a ski resort, and we'relucky enough to carry on the tradition of
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the Lumberjack World Championships. And Ihave a quote from him here as to
why he kind of wanted to startthis event. It says the Lumberjack World
Championships were inaugurated in nineteen sixty toperpetuate and glorify the working skills of the
American lumberjack. Hayward, Wisconsin cameinto existence because of the lumber industry.
Therefore, it was fitting that oneof the largest logging competitions should be held
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here also, And it's true rightwhere we compete down at Lumberjack Bowl,
that body of water you saw there, it was actually a holding pond for
those logs before they were they weresold, So it was used as by
the lumberjacks back you know, inthe mid to late eighteen hundred. So
it's just kind of exciting that we'reable to carry on that rich tradition and
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carry on this legacy that Tony createdand worked so hard for, you know,
And it's taken sixty four years towhat it is today. Right like
when he started, he didn't havea lot of money. It was all
word of mouth, trying to convinceinternational competitors to come even local you know,
United States competitors, and it's justgrown and grown, and here we
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are talking about it to you inBrazil. So it's just really good for
me. He did a great job, right, and let's be really nice
for you and for the community tostart doing the traditional things you guys used
to do. And now it isfamous and as you said, now we
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are talking about it and I'm herein Brazil looking forward to to know more
and hear more. And by theway, do you compete since you were
like five years old, like,for how long are you competing? Yeah?
So I've been competing for thirty yearswile rolling was kind of the bread
and butter when I started, andas I got old, I got into
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the boom running, which you sawin that opening video. There are the
string of logs attached between the twodocks where you run down and back.
And my husband actually is also acompetitor. So as we've you know,
worked our way into the pro ranks, we do the jack and jill sawing
together and then I do the Jilland Jill sawing with my partner, who's
another blog roller as well, SoI dabble kind of on both sides of
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the dock, but mainly stick tothe water events. That's that's so cool,
And it is so cool because youlook like being so sweet, you
know, so so delicate, andthen I see these vagus like it's crazy,
that's so nice. Yeah, youget a wide variety of competitors,
you know, you get people workin the logging industry. You know,
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I'm an event director. Some peopleare school teachers, some people are a
chemists, some people are attorneys.You know. Our lumberjack community kind of
comes from all backgrounds, and everyoneis so different in what they do and
their history with this sport, andeven down to what, you know,
what they look like. And Ithink that's what is so unique is that
when you turn it on or youcome to watch, you're you just you're
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like, wow, who are thesepeople? Where do they come from?
You know, this is a hobbysport for many people. It's not their
full time job. There is decentrize money, but the gear is so
expensive it's typically not enough to makeit a full time job for most folks.
So it is something that people aretraveling on the weekends doing so it
just creates this really kind of uniquelumberjack family that we have. Yeah,
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that's very nice. That's very nicein general, you know, all doors
sports the community are so nice.I mean, you can and it is
inspiration for people because people can doanything right, So that's that's very nice.
Yeah. And what type of eventsare there? Yeah, so we
have a variety of events that you'llsee the speed climbing, which was those
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really tall poles you saw on thevideo there there's sixty and ninety fek tall
and the guys climb up and down. We call it the looney bin where
we have the speed climbing poles becauseyou've got to have a few screws loose
to convene that event as far asI'm concerned. We've got the log rolling,
which is in the water, avery traditional event. That's an event
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that's been around since the inception ofthe Lumberjack World Championships. That's one that
most people have seen before on theboom running came quite a few years later.
Those that's a string of logs attachedacross the center of Lumberjack Bowl there.
And then we've got ax throwing.That one very familiar for many people.
Ax throwing bars are popping up allover the country, so I know
a lot of people have tried thatout these days. Then we've got a
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variety of chopping events. We've gotan underhand chop, which is a log
that is below their feet and they'reactually standing on top and just chopping right
in between their feet from both sides. We've got a standing block chop,
which is a vertical log and they'restanding on the deck chopping from both sides.
And then we've got a springboard chopwhere they actually have a tree standing
about a six foot tree standing,they have to chop two pockets in that
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tree, placed a springboard in there, and then standing on that top springboard,
which is kind of bouncing and flexing, they have to chop through the
top of the block on top oftheir So again, all of those came
from kind of the skills and thework that those old day lumberjacks that do,
so that's kind of how those cameabout. And then we've got a
variety of sawing events. So we'vegot the hot saw event or the modified
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chainsaw events. So these guys typicallyhave old dirt bike or snowmobile engines that
they've put bars and chains on.They're absolutely insane and loud and they out
and beat with them. And thenwe've got some traditional sawing events, so
those old crosscut saws that a lotof people here in the Midwest have hanging
on their walls in their cabins orat these restaurants. The single buck sauce.
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We've got a man and a womanwho saw individually in that event.
We've got an event where two mensaw together, so handles on both ends.
We've got an event where two ladiessaw together to lumber jill, so
again to handles on both ends.And then we've got the one event where
we combine the men and the women. It's called the Jack and Jill sawing
event. And that's what my husbandand I do, and that's where we
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get the guys in the gals togetherand they work through that log together.
So those are all of the eventsthat you'll see in a weekend that Lumberjack
Bowl, which makes it exciting.You're never just watching the same thing.
There's action going on, there's differentaction going on all over the place.
Yeah, that's lots to do.And when I'm hearing you, I'm wondering
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how danger is that. I meananyone has been seriously injuried or something like
that during the competitions. Yeah,I mean what we do is dangerous.
A lot of safety precautions are takenwith the chopping. Specifically, the guys
and gals wear a chain mail kindof like a knight's armor under their pants
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and in their shoes, so ifthat acts were to glance or come off
of their log and hit their toeor their shin, it would leave a
pretty good bruise, but it's notactually going to sever anything, so that
keeps those pretty safe. In addition, over on the log rolling side,
we actually have spiked shoes on,so we take soccer cleats, we tear
grind the bottoms off, and weput about they were from fifteen to twenty
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quarter inch logging spikes in the bottom. For the most part, our feet
are to sing on top of thelog. But occasionally when you fall you'll
catch a leg or a shin ora thigh or you know who knows how
you're falling, so you'll get alittle cut that way, But that one's
pretty safe. The most dangerous eventthat you'll seek and tested is that speed
climb. Those guys have two gas. They're essentially Lineman's gas that have been
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heat and bench so they've been modifiedto allow these guys to literally sprint up
and down those poles. Those thoseare hooked onto their shoes and then they've
got that rope. There's no balletsystem or anything. We've got a safety
rope on the top so that theycan't actually go up and over that pole.
But we have seen some injuries there. But what we do is we
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go through a pretty expensive ranking processwith the competition committee and make sure that
everybody competing at our event is qualifiedto be there. So they are the
best of the best, the toptwenty four in each event that have applied.
So we really don't see a lotof injuries because these guys are and
gals are so practiced and they're justsuch professionals and what they do that we
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don't see a lot of slip ups. So it does look dangerous, but
we keep it pretty safe. Yes, because I work climb and I use
so many treepmments and then when Isaw these speed climb I was like,
WHOA, that's something else it is. It is unreal. Those guys are
so incredible and just so athletic tobe able to do that, it's just
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and that's definitely one of those crowdpleasers, right because people they can't believe
it, and you know a lotof people are scared of heights and everything
else. You know, people havechopped wood or throwing an axe or seeing
a saw, but they see thatspeed climb and they just can't imagine doing
that. So one of those thrillingevents. Yes, it's like a superman
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and super women's power and talking aboutthat that has the lumber Jackie World Championship
always being men and women. Yeah, So when it first started in nineteen
sixty, the only women female eventthat was offered was law rolling. Law
rolling was established probably about ten yearsbefore that. There was an organization that
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was in charge of these lag rollingcompetitions, and so the law rollers were
kind of established in that sense.The chopping and sign took a little bit
longer, so it wasn't until nineteeneighty four that Jack and Jill sewing was
actually introduced on the stage and thatwas the first time that you saw women
on that chopping and sawing doc Andit was actually Mel Lenz and Charlie Smith
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who won that first title. Innineteen eighty four, Mel Lens is still
competing, his son is competing,So it's kind of fun to see that
name as you know, being oneof the first, and he's still around.
These people. These athletes just competewell into you know, their sixties
or seventies. Even we have amaster's division at LWC. So it's really
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great to see like that active lifestyleand just that history carrying on and down
through the families. And then actuallythis year we're celebrating thirty years of the
women chopping and sawing on our stage. So nineteen ninety four was the first
year that the women had their ownchopping and their own sawing on the LWC
stage. This was things in goodpart to Penish Hear, Jim Alexander,
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and Penny Halberson. They just theyhad these women who just refused to accept
that they weren't allowed to be onthat dock, and they kept pushing and
insisting that they should be there,and then they got there, right they
did. Tina specifically did a lotof work in raising prize money and helping
to establish that and then you know, about three years in it caught on
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and they were able to get moreprize money, and then it was accepted
and now we offer just as manywomen's events as we do men's events.
Some of them are open, suchas the speed climb, the springboard,
and the hot Sauce. You don'tsee a lot of, if any,
women entering those events, but wedo have the same opportunities for women as
we do men on our stage,which I am very proud of. I
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think that is something that's so important, not only for the people who are
competing, but for younger athletes andyounger generations to see both men and women
on the stage together. Yes,for sure, even though I don't know
much about those people, those womenyou said I like once I am.
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I am woman as well. Iam very thankful for women like those women
you just said, who work sohard for open opportunity for the women in
general. So that's very very nice, and that's very nice to see I
sport so open for everyone, forwomen, men, older people, So
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that's very nice. And talking allthat, are your kids involved in these
yeah, So I've got two kiddows, they're four and three. They're not
too involved yet, but they dosee me practicing log rolling in the summer.
They see my husband training in thechopping and sewing, so they will
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hop on a log. There's stilla lot of handholding at this point.
They do have foam axes. Weordered them from Amazon, so they will
they do some chopping in the backyardand chopping in the house. We have
to talk about, you know,appropriate things to chop and appropriate thing and
not. They definitely get it.This is this is something that they're they've
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just grown up around and they're goingto continue to be around. I will
never force them to compete. Ido hope they share the same love for
it as us. Right now,they definitely show that. I'm hoping that
they'll they'll add to those competitor numbersas they get older. Here. You
know, we do offer we don'ttalk about it a lot, but we
do offer an amateur log rolling eventthe Lumberjack World Championships. So in the
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morning on Thursday and Friday, wedo open it to amateur lag rollers.
It's the only amateur event we offer, but it's really exciting to see anywhere
from the U seven division all theway up to about seventeen years old.
You see in the amateur division rollingbefore all the pros come out in the
afternoon in the evening, so wereally do see all ages throughout the weekend,
which just it warms my heart.That's very cute. I would love
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to see those kids. That's sonice. It is that nice. It
is a nice family time as wellthat you are and your husband arebu genie
with your keats, no teaching likethose nice thinks. And they may compete
as well, but sounds like theyou it is in your blood pretty much,
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it is, and you see thema lot in this sport. Actually,
there's a lot of generational athletes.A lot of the guys and gals
who compete their parents have competed,and some of them their grandparents have competed,
so they were truly just born intothe sport. So not only do
you have actual blood families in it, but then because we're all traveling together
on the weekends, our kids areall together all the time, playing and
practicing. Like I said, wejust become one big family. So you
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know, our competition, we haveabout one hundred and ten pro athletes that
compete at LWC over the three daystheir Lumberjackeral Championships. It is like one
giant family. It's one big gettogether everyone's in the Athlete ten catching up
and people are coming from all over, right, They're from not only all
over the United States to east coastto west coast here in the Midwest,
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but they're coming from internationally. Wehave competitors from Australia, New Zealand,
Japan, Canada, Sweden, theCzech Republic. It just kind of depends
on the year, but we usuallyhave four to five different countries represented on
our stage, which is really great. I mean, we're a town of
twenty five hundred people on a regularday here in northern Wisconsin, so have
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all of these international competitors coming toour town and compete is just so special.
Yes, that's nice. And I'msure you guys looking forward to see
to other in the competitions and travelall together and you know, have these
family friends moment in the competition,because in the end of the day,
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is not just about winning, right, it is about the community, you
know, like the event itself.So I'm sure you can make lots of
friends and see all of them inthose big events. Must be so nice,
it is, yeah, And forme, you know, as the
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event manager, it is about thecompetition and it's about the athletes. Being
an athlete, I have that perspective, but it is about this great community
event for our community too. Imean, we have ticket holders who are
traveling from all over again, peopletruly from I think we had thirty different
states maybe represented last year in ourcrowd, which is awesome. People are
playing their summer vacations around this.Some are driving in and their campers,
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some are flying in and spending aweek here, so drawing people to our
community. They're also you know,going downtown and hanging out and shopping and
visiting the local restaurants, visiting LumberjackBowl. So it's really just great to
me that we can have a competitionthat is drawing these people from across the
country to come to our area,come to the north Woods and experience it
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and hopefully have such a good timethat they want to come back. Right
there's hunting and fishing and all ofthis other great stuff here ski races,
you know. So it's just greatthat our little community can host these world
class events and really entertain people fromall over. And I'm wondering here,
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what was your most memorable time?Why you competing? While competing, my
most memorable moment is getting a bifferentplace in the law rolling. It wasn't
first. I don't know if I'llever reach that point again, just with
where I'm at in life with myfamily and just priorities. But I got
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second place to my actually my Jilland Jill sawing partner, so one of
my really good friends, and Irolled for the championship. But you know,
second place isn't so bad. Thewomen's field has just gotten more and
more competitive as the years have goton, and that's just that's a memory
that I don't think i'll ever forget. Just competing on Saturday night at Lumberjack
Bull There's about three thousand people inthere, just backed around there. You
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know, the sun is setting.It's just like I get goosebumps talking about
it. It's just such a specialspecial weekend for me and has been since
I grew up here in a competingfor so long. It's just a great
memory for me. And I havea personal question, now, did I
meet Did you meet your husband inthose competitions? We did meet through Lumberjacksports,
(24:02):
Yeah, we met many. We'vebeen together for thirteen years now,
married for five, so I meanwe probably knew each other for five to
ten years before we got together.But yeah, we met through lumberjacksports,
which is which is exciting, right. He's actually originally from upstate, New
York and got started in the sportthrough a collegiate team. So he competed
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out at Paul Smith's in New Yorkand then helped to start a team at
Stevens Point here in Wisconsin and gotto start collegiately, which is just kind
of another avenue into lumberjacksports. Howcool. I love it. You can
make friends and also, look,you're find your the level for our life.
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We don't know what's going to happenwhen you get down the lumberjack ball,
I tell you, oh so cool. And do you think that the
lumbert Jack World Championship will be anydifferent in the next twenty years? I
hope so so. So we'll backtracka little bit some of the history behind
(25:03):
it back when Tony Wise first startedit, when he was working on just
getting the word out about this competitionand trying to get international competitors here.
One of the big things that hetried to do was get national media,
and the ABC's Wide World of Sportswas one thing that he was able to
get involved. I don't know ifyou are familiar with that or remember that
(25:25):
at all, but it was thisgreat TV show that was on ABC.
Everybody watched it, so Lumberjacksports kindof became a household name at that point.
That was nineteen seventy nine to nineteeneighty two. They actually signed a
contract and the Lumberjack World Championships gotpaid, which was huge back in the
day. You know, it wasabout twelve to thirteen thousand dollars they had
for these TV rights, which backthen was a lot of money. So
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that helped to grow the sport andI want to see that happen again.
Now we've got great media that comesin. We've seen great media throughout the
years. We've aired on ESPN three, we've had other ESPN, we had
the Today Show there. You know, we get some really great national media.
But one of my personal goals isto see the Lumberjack World Championships being
aired nationally again, making the sporta household name, making these athletes a
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household name, being able to telltheir stories, the people that they are.
All these you know, this isone of probably forty competitions throughout the
summer, and that might even bea low number. There's a few competitions
here in the Midwest, other smallercompetitions. There's some on the East coast
and some on the West coast.But it's this whole circuit going on basically
as soon as it's warm enough tochop wood and roll logs in soft water
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not hard water as we call it, so you know, getting it on
TV and getting it nationally known again, they're just more nationally known as one
of my personal goals. In additionto that, even though we offer the
same number of men's events and women'sevents, our women's numbers are always lower
than our men. We typically getmore men applying than women, So I
would love to see the number ofwomen applying, the number of women in
(26:56):
the sport increase and match the mena little bit more. It is steadily
grown over the years thanks to theawesome Just ambassadors and just gals that we
have on the stage. When youwatch them, they're so great with talking
to people. They carry themselves well, and I think it's an inspiration for
other females or maybe at the highschool or collegiate level and are interested in
(27:18):
getting started. And then my leftschool is just get more international competitors.
You know, we do have agood spread, but we typically have about
five to ten maybe each year.I would love to see more people come
over internationally. Obviously it's a bigtrip. Gear is not easy. That's
a whole other podcast we could doabout traveling with your acts and your saws
(27:41):
and forget a hot saw. Myhusband and I have been over to Australia
to compete. He's been all overto compete, but traveling with your gear
just has another layer of complications.Getting more international competitors here would be great,
but I know it's expensive and it'sjust it's a trip for those guys.
Well, you are inspiration. SoI hope that women and girls in
(28:07):
general can compete more. And weare seeing in sports in general that girls
are playing more, so that's verynice. And by the way, we
have a rock star from ESPN inthe show. I didn't know that you
are real rock stars. So youcompete. You are the marketing manager.
(28:33):
You have two kids, you teachthem those amazing stuff, and you also
won the television. You're my beststorm for here just trying to stay busy.
Well, you were doing a greatjob being busy. Well now we
(28:56):
are in my favorite part of theshow. We have some pictures here to
look up, so one can youshow you to us so we can kind
of talk about them if you want, yes, please explain. Yeah,
So this is the men's on yourhandchop. So this is a chop that
(29:18):
if you're getting into the sport,this is usually the first one you're going
to learn. And they are juststarting I believe this is on go because
all of their actes are up together. So they'll chop about halfway through that
block, right in between their dosethere, and then they'll turn around and
finish chopping on the other side.So this is one of just those bread
and butter events that you'll see atevery lumberjack competition. Oh my gosh,
(29:40):
looks danger it sure does, butbelieve it or not, this is one
of the safer ones. And likeI said, they do wear that team
mail under their socks, so safetyprecautions are being taken. You just don't
necessarily see it in a photo.Well, that's very cool and must be
very exciting while just finishes first.Yeah, they're just so fast. It's
(30:04):
I mean, the axe is outof the wood before you know, as
soon as it's in and you're justit's hard to believe how fast they go.
That's pretty coold. So this isactually harder Meredith and I. So
this is the Jill and Jill.That's my husband wedging for us. So
one saw, two handles, andyou're just working your way through that.
(30:25):
This is all about working with yourpartner, right. We can't be pulling
at the same time, we can'tbe pushing at the same time, so
just kind of getting in that rhythm. You do get to use a third
partner or a teammate in this one. And Adam's there holding you see,
he's got a wooden wedge in hishand, and his other hand that's hidden
is using usually a lubricant like aWD forty, so they spray that on
(30:45):
a saw to keep it moving,and then that wedge in the top just
helps separate that that cookie or thatdisc that we're cutting from the log,
so it allows that saw to movea little more freely in there, and
you can see all the noodles orthe wood chips kind of flying off the
end of the saw there. Yeah, that's very cool and I hope you
guys train for that. You finda tree in it, cut it actually,
(31:10):
you'll notice the one that we're usingis perfectly round. So all the
competition woe is lathe turned and it'stypically from the same stand of trees,
and it's all turned to the samesize. That's one unique thing about our
sport is you can never guarantee thatthings are going to be the same.
You don't know when a knut's goingto appear, you know where a branch
(31:30):
was growing or something. So sometimesyou hit a knot, which really slows
these saws down. These saws areso incredibly sharp. If your finger even
touches one of the teeth on thatsaw, you will puncture your skin.
So with that you actually can't youcan't hit a knot without potentially bending or
breaking a tooth. You don't wantit to hit any sand, so you
(31:52):
make sure the log is clean.As soon as we're done, that saw
goes right back in the scabbard.So training is that on the same type
of stuff. You'll find you cutdown trees, typically trees that are a
little bit softer if you're here inthe Midwest, or you know, trees
that will be similar to what you'regoing to be chopping or sawing on.
So white pine or aspin for ushere. Then you take the bark off
(32:15):
because that's that's the rough part there, and you set it in a stand
and this is how we practice.We pull the saw. You typically not
pulling your competition saw in practice.You usually have one that's just for practice,
and then you pull your really sharpone out. After so many pulls
on that saw, you do haveto get it resharpened. They're only about
three guys in the world that dothat. They're all hand fine. Yeah,
(32:39):
and there's a waiting list for it. So it's not like you put
home, you know, you popon the podcast and you're sharpening your sauce.
So again, with the gear isjust it's an add the whole other
level of complexity to the sport.Yeah, so everyone has your own equipments
or the tournament to giv'd for beingmore like equal. Nope, everybody comes
(33:02):
with their own gear. So youkind of have to have a budget too.
The more money you have, thebetter saw you might have. Now
you could have a great saw andnot know how to operate it and not
be a great sayer. So obviouslythe technique and skill has to be there,
but many of these guys and galsare coming to a competition and they've
got two three boxes of axes thatthey're showing up with. Some are showing
(33:23):
up with one box of axes becauseit's all they can afford, or maybe
they just got into this spot andthey haven't, you know, built up
their repertoire essentially. But you're comingwith all your own gear, all your
own axes, all your own saws. You see my front foot there,
not on meritis so much, butmine on the right. That's just another
(33:44):
piece of gear. A lot ofpeople ask about. It's just a block
on the ground so you can putthose on the dock. It just helps
to basically keep your feet studying,gives you some more leverage. Aren't sliding
around. We are both wearing ourlog rolling quirks there. So they've got
those. Those cleats are those adomBut that's just so you have better footing
when you're sawing. Yeah, Inoticed that, But now I understand what
(34:06):
you mean when you said it ishard to travel with your equipment. So
I cannot imagine going to our airplanewith that. They don't want to carry
it on, you know, theyjust tell you it's not thursdaye. So
your eggs become your best friend.So when we pack those up, you
take the handles off, you spendabout ten to fifteen minutes cleaning them use
(34:30):
you know, just like a paintbrush. Again, your wuty forty, get
all the wood chips off, youlub it up, you make sure there's
no other moisture on there, nowater, You put it back in the
wooden scabbard. You screw it shut, and that's how you carry it to
the next competition or to the nextshow. Well, that's lots of work.
Oh there you go. Another shotof it there coming off. So
(34:51):
yeah, you can see, youcan even this is a good one.
In the middle of the log thereyou can see the not so Yeah,
sometimes I slow you down, youknow, And as a competition director,
we try to work to actively avoidhaving that. Now the next person we
would cut into that log to tryto get past that not because not only
does it make the competition unfair,that not slows you down in the song,
(35:13):
but it can ruin someone's gear.So we'll work through those knots as
we go. But that's just apart of our sport. You just can't
every log can't be the same.There's just no log, so we can
get them from the same tree orthe same stand of timber, so they
can be as similar as possible.But that's about as close as you can
get. Yeah, you can allcontrol natural and trace. Sure, as
(35:37):
much as we want to, wesure can't. And that's the beauty all
of the doors. Oh I lovethe debt dog rolling. This is from
this last summer. This is thisis what I love. Right here.
So it's two people on the log. There are three out of five matches,
and you're just trying to stay onlonger than the other person. You're
(36:00):
in your feet, you're concentrating onyour opponent's feet. Blog rolling is it's
very much a cardiovascular spore. Ittakes strength, but it's so mental as
well. You cannot lose your focusfor a half a second or your butt
is in the water. So itjust takes a lot of focus, tuning
everything else out, not letting yourselfget nervous, just kind of doing what
(36:21):
you know how to do out there. That's nice and you can out an
older girl right correct. Yeah,sometimes your hands might touch just with flailing,
but you can't intentionally touch them andyou can't cross that. There's a
center line on the log, youcan't step on or cross that center line.
But other than that, pretty mucheverything else goes. You can dip
(36:42):
your toe in the water and splashedwater in your opponent's eyes. We'll try
to use yeah, I know,right, it's an effective one. We'll
use different maneuvers like kicking the logor changing directions if you're if you can
overpower your opponent to try and throwthem off. In this match, wearing
what's called the bucking so we're facingopposite directions. So when you learn the
(37:02):
log role, you just learn toroll over one shoulder, so I look
over my left shoulder. It's justkind of like riding right or left handed.
You just have a certain way thatyou do it, or riding a
skateboard. So in a bucking match, one of us is always running forward
and one of us is always runningbackward. So ideally you want to maintain
control and be running forward because you'reusually going to be faster on your front
(37:23):
step than you are your backsteps.So there's some strategicy that comes in here
too. WHOA, that's crazy thatthat looks like it's very hard and difficult.
It is. It takes a goodbit to learn to log roll.
It's always best if you start asa kid. You're fearless. As a
(37:44):
kid, your center of gravity islower. When you start as an adult,
it's just your brain is telling youthat this is it wise, you
know, it's it's telling you totake off. Your center of gravity isn't
used to I mean, now he'sit a free floating log. It's spinning,
it's bouncing up and down, youknow. So when I always tell
people, if you can start whenyou're younger, get your kids and know
when they're younger, it's just alot easier for them to learn. WHOA,
(38:07):
that's all nice, and it mustbe very very nice for our kids
growing up learning all those things thatmentally, the physical ba stability. It
is and it's so much fun,right. I love when you can have
sports that are just fun. Imean it's difficult, but you're in the
water, you're splashing around, it'ssummer in Wisconsin. I mean it just
(38:28):
it doesn't get any better than that, right, And these guys are spending
the logs so fast, this wasour championship match from last year. That
sometimes the log just disappears, whichagain makes it even trickier. But these
guys are so good they know wherethat log is that they don't necessarily need
to see it the whole time toknow where it is under their feet.
So just lots of practice, lotsof repetition in the log rolling. The
(38:52):
best rinning for log rolling is logrolling. Nothing compares to it. It
just you can be a runner,you can be a skier, but being
on that log and sprinting back andforth and sprinting in place while the lag
is rotating, just I've never foundanything that can quite compare to that.
Yes, could you say that itis the most difficult competition in the in
(39:14):
the show, I would say it'sone of the tougher ones to learn,
but they all have, you know, they all just have their difficulties.
So I would say log rolling tocompete at the pro level might be one
of the tougher events to learn,but they all kind of carry their own
difficulties, you know, and toperfect that skill level. Yeah, it's
(39:35):
okay. Yeah, So this isOh, that s easier. I like
it. So this is Mike Stullivan, He's won this event many times.
I don't even know how much moneythat some of these guys have into these
saws A new so can run anywherefrom five to ten thousand dollars. Some
of these guys have twenty to thirtythousand dollars in one of these chain saws.
(39:58):
Absolutely incredible. But they will slicethrough three of those wood cookies in
four or five seconds, no problem. I mean, it's yeah, it's
frightening, and they're allowed it.They're allowed yep. So ear protection like
protection here. All safety precautions aretaken with this one. We have extra
guards up in between the stands.But these saws are These saws are fun.
(40:22):
They're fun to watch. People lovewatching the hot saw. I can
picture that for sure. Yep.This is the Jack and Jill so similar.
Now you've got a man and awoman on the end. So I
always think that this one's trickier forthe male because he's got it. Typically
(40:44):
men are stronger than women. That'sjust the case. They're bigger, you
know, whatever it might be.So a lot of times the men,
like especially my husband, he's almostgot to slow down just a little bit
for me, because if he overpowersme, then we're actually going slower,
Whereas if he kind of waits forme at my speed, we can sell
really well together. So again allabout finding your partner, working with them
(41:05):
consistently and just getting into the rhythm. Martha and Jason are great competitors together.
So they're two of the best atthis event. Here. Well it
can be a good couple. Therapyare not send you to therapy. You
just never know. Oh, thereyou go. This is the speed climb.
(41:29):
So these are the luney Bin guyshere. So this is those red
lines. There are the sixty footmarks on our ninety foot trees. We've
got the sixty foot speed climb that'scontested and the ninety foot I believe this
is Devin Blair and Caleb Graves there, so two of our best speed climbers.
Yeah, one gap on the insideof each boot in that rope and
these guys climb up those trees likeyou and I would walk down the street.
(41:52):
It is just amazing to watch them. They make it look so effortless.
Yes, they are so fast,and it seems like they're not even
like tired. I mean, theyjust make it look so easy that you're
like, are you trying? Andyou know they are. You know,
it's incredibly difficult. When they getdone, they're on a press, but
(42:14):
they're so graceful and how they goup and you know how they come down,
and you know it's so tough ontheir bodies because Caleb's already coming down
on the right there. They haveto put one of those gaffs in every
fifteen feet, so they can't justdo a complete refall. But imagine calling
that fast and then having to sticka metal spike into the tree. It's
going to slow you down, right, So part of the finesse there is
(42:37):
getting that gaff in and out withoutslowing you down or you know, pulling
your leg back up or whatever itmight be. So this one really takes
a lot of rhythm and just practiceof getting into that climb and then getting
comfortable with coming down. Yeah,so much technique, so much. This
(43:00):
is the springboard chop, so that'sabout the top half of the tree there.
So those boards that those guys arestanding on are actually slipped into pockets
that they've chopped in the tree.So this one is like the marathon of
the chopping events. It's the longestevent. Hardest part honestly is chopping those
pockets in the tree. I saythat and I've never done it, but
from what I'm told, pocket sothat that board has a metal clip or
(43:24):
a metal shoe on it. Thatshoe has to stick in there. If
they don't get a good pocket,that board could fly out and then they'll
fall down. So it's all aboutgetting a good board, and then you
don't. You can't see it inthe picture. A video is better here,
but that board kind of actually flexesup and down as they're chopping,
so it adds the difficulty here.Not only are you six feet in the
(43:45):
air, so you've got that inyour head, but that board is flexing
up and down as you're chopping through. And then in this one they still
have to turn around and make atleast one chop on the backside of that
log, so when they go tothe backside, they're actually then chopping with
her offhand. So it just hasso many layers of difficulty. This one
is one of the most exciting onesto watch, I think, because it
(44:07):
just requires so much skill and technique. Oh boy, I've never saw that.
I love it, and looks likeit'd be very very difficult. For
sure, it does. And thisone is cool because it again stems from
historically the lumberjacks. They will tooif they were working on the side of
a hill and they needed to geton level ground. They would chop a
(44:29):
pocket in a tree and chop thetree like this, or saw the tree
like this, or sometimes some ofthose larger trees had these really large root
systems and they had to get abovethose to get to the tree to s
chop it down, So they hadto chop pockets and put these springboards in.
I used to live in Colorado andmy husband and I would be hiking.
We would come across these old treesand the sides of the mountains that
(44:51):
would actually have these springboard pockets inthem that were, however, many decades
old, because that's truly how theyused to get up above these roots a
around the side of these hills tochop these trees down. So it's all
about the history. Well there Igo. I've also wondering, Yeah,
this is the X throwing that's actuallyour champion from last year, mister Ben
(45:13):
Whalen. So we used double bittedaxes. A lot of people talk about
going to ax sewing bars, anda lot of them use hatchet. Some
do use these double bitted axes.But the competitors stand from twenty feet away
and they've got to make the axeessentially makes one full rotation on the way
to the target, and the highestscore winds perfect scores of fifteen. You're
(45:35):
looking hit that bullseye. Oh boy, I always see that on movies and
stuff like that, and I alwayswanted to try. So so much fun.
Well, come to Hayward first oneof August. This is a boom
run, So this is another thrillerfor the crowd. These guys and gals
(45:57):
sprint down across the logs and thenthey run around a barrel and come back.
So again, these logs are freefloating. As you can see,
they're going up and down. They'llspin back and forth. It's incredibly difficult.
It is so much fun to doand it's so much fun to watch.
They can fall in. You canfall in up to three times and
then you're out. But you canfall in and hot back up, so
the crowd really gets invested when youfall in. They're cheering for you to
(46:21):
get back on, which is obviouslyvery difficult because the water is you know,
up to your chest or neck inthe middle. There. So just
a really fun one to watch liveit. Well, let's tuan. This
is a historical one. So thisis Ron Hortel. As you can see,
competition shirts were not a thing anddatingld he you know, it's funny,
(46:45):
but he actually brought so much exposureto the sport by chopping without a
shirt on. So stuff like thisreally does sell and you know, really
attractive people. But this this photois from Lumberjack ol right where we still
chop. You know, we havenew bleachers, we might have a new
doc. But it's really cool thatwe're in the same spot that the Lumberjack
(47:07):
World Championships, you know, firstkind of got it start. So this
is I just love old photos likethis. Nowadays everyone has to wear their
shirt. We keep it PG.But I'm sure people would be much more
excited to see stuff like this.Oh yeah, I love it. Well
that's all. And uh what andif if people want to be part and
(47:32):
do those uh those crazy stuff,what they need to do? They need
to be a super women and superman. How how it works? Yeah,
that's essentially it. I mean no, I'm just kidding. All the ways
you can get started. So Ikind of mentioned the one earlier. Getting
involved Collegiately, there are a lotof schools, specifically here in the Midwest
(47:53):
out in the northeast and northwest.A lot of colleges have timber sport teams,
some high schools, so they getstarted that way. Otherwise connecting with
a local pro so you can alwaysyou know, email us and you can
see where you're located and we canhelp get with the pro. A lot
of people just get started by goingand training with pros and they just they
(48:13):
watch and they learn. And thelast way and not everyone does this successfully,
is YouTube. We have one lumberjackwho started watching YouTube videos was kind
of self taught. I mean he'ssince trained with other people. He's now
an excellent competitor, but he reallytaught himself off of YouTube. So thank
goodness for the Internet and things likeYouTube and people are able to teach themselves
(48:36):
all of these great skills. Sothere are men get involved if you really
want to and you really have apassion for this, that's cool And where
can people connect? So if youonline if they want to learn traw you
so you can connect with the LumberjackWorld Championships on Instagram at Lumberjack Champs,
(48:58):
on Facebook at Lumberjack World Championships,or on YouTube at Lumberjack World Championships.
I'm on all those pages all thetime, checking in with people helping the
post, and I'm also available viaemail at info at Lumberjackworld Championships dot com.
Or you can visit our website LumberjackBowl dot com and see you know,
(49:21):
we've got our store on there.We're working on getting some more history
up. We've got athlete bios onthere, more about the competition this year,
how to buy tickets, and welove to have everybody come join us
and heyward this summer. Well guys, so joy joined the competition. Well
Samantha, thank you very sorry,thank you very much for being our guest.
(49:43):
It was very lovely to hear yourhistories and see your pictures and see
how we your rocket. You arereally rockstar and superhero. So thank you
very much for being the show.Yeah, thanks for having me. I
appreciate you. Guy was asking meto be on and talk more about it.
Anytime I can talk about Lumberjack Sportsand the Lumberjack World Championships. I
(50:06):
am one half of Yale wow uh, and I want to thank you,
thank you guys for follow the show, and thank you for the audience for
tuning in outdoors. People until Nextweek Choo
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(00:21):
FOURCY Radio. Welcome to outdoors peoplewith me. Cw Getz and her Maya
mar Zaki. Good evening. It'sWednesday, February twenty eighth, twenty twenty
(00:54):
four ends, and it's a beautifulsunny day here in So Paulo, Brazil,
like Alis with twenty two degrees celsiusfor the free world and for you
guys the United States, it iseighty three degrees fahrenheit and tonight I'm flying
solo, so wish me look guysand look for you as well, that
(01:19):
we'll put up with my accent.So let's meet tonight. Guest twenty four
years old, business and marketing professionalfrom Wisconsin, Samantalasaul is also a female
lumberjack, otherwise referred to as alumber jill. Samantha is a marketing specialist
(01:42):
for chamber Works Lumberjacks shows and theevent manager from the Lumberjack World Championship,
which will celebrate its sixty fourth anniversarythis year. Ye Angel with that,
(03:15):
welcome Samantha. Thank you. Ifthat video doesn't get you excited to talk
about lumberjack sports, but I don'tknow. Well I'm excited now. Oh
my gosh, I got really excited. I was going to say that that's
Sophie. Now, that's crazy.I love it. It's very nice,
it's very unique. If you haven'tseen it before, a lot of people
(03:35):
just see that and they're instantly intrigued. Right, yes, right, I
saw it out on television, butI didn't know that, but like real,
like you do it? Yes,yes, that's so cool. And
how did you get started being alumber jill? Yeah? So I grew
up right here in Hayward hosted theLumberjack World Championships in Wisconsin, and my
(03:58):
mom was the manager at what wecall Lumberjack Bowl, Historic Lumberjack Bowl.
So rather than signing me up forsoccer camp like a lot of kids do
when they're younger. She signed meup for law growing school when I was
five, So I spent the summersdown there while growing with my friends,
doing a little bit of swimming whenI was younger, and I just stuck
with it. You know, asyou get older and you move out of
the amateur ranks and into the proranks, you kind of are also going
(04:23):
through high school and college and makingthat transition into adulthood, and you have
to decide is this something I reallywant to commit to? And I did,
and I love it, and I'mso happy I stuck with it,
and it's just been a passion ofmine since I was five. Oh,
I can't tell why. That's verycool. Yeah, and let's have you
(04:43):
give us a little background about theLumberjack Road Championship. Yeah. So this
summer will be our sixty fourth annualcompetition. In a nutshell, The Lumberjack
World Championships is a three day internationalcompetition held right here in Hayward, Wisconsin
and showcasing some of the best choppers, sawyers, speed climbers, lag rollers,
and boom runners from across the world. We have over ten thousand spectators
(05:08):
that we see throughout the three days, and we have over seventy thousand dollars
in prize money for our athletes.It is just rich in history. You
know. It started in nineteen sixtythat actually was started by a local man
named Tony Wise, And if you'refrom the Hayward area, he's a very
familiar name around here. He wasa Hayward Vet, our Hayward native.
(05:29):
Excuse me. He was an Armyvet World War Two. He got his
NBA from Harvard University and he movedback to the Hayward area in nineteen forty
seven actually, and his goal wasto kind of revive the Hayward area and
make it a destination place for peoplefrom the Chicago and Twin Cities area.
And he thought, what can Ido to get people to come here?
And he kind of had three thingson his mind. He wanted to start
(05:50):
a ski resort, he wanted tostart a giant cross country ski race.
And he had this idea of HistoryLand and the Lumberjack World Championships. And
he successfully did all of them.You know. He started the American Burgerbinder
Ski Rights, he started History Landand the lumbers World Championships, and he
started a ski resort, and we'relucky enough to carry on the tradition of
(06:10):
the Lumberjack World Championships. And Ihave a quote from him here as to
why he kind of wanted to startthis event. It says the Lumberjack World
Championships were inaugurated in nineteen sixty toperpetuate and glorify the working skills of the
American lumberjack. Hayward, Wisconsin cameinto existence because of the lumber industry.
Therefore, it was fitting that oneof the largest logging competitions should be held
(06:32):
here also, And it's true rightwhere we compete down at Lumberjack Bowl,
that body of water you saw there, it was actually a holding pond for
those logs before they were they weresold, So it was used as by
the lumberjacks back you know, inthe mid to late eighteen hundred. So
it's just kind of exciting that we'reable to carry on that rich tradition and
(06:56):
carry on this legacy that Tony createdand worked so hard for, you know,
And it's taken sixty four years towhat it is today. Right like
when he started, he didn't havea lot of money. It was all
word of mouth, trying to convinceinternational competitors to come even local you know,
United States competitors, and it's justgrown and grown, and here we
(07:17):
are talking about it to you inBrazil. So it's just really good for
me. He did a great job, right, and let's be really nice
for you and for the community tostart doing the traditional things you guys used
to do. And now it isfamous and as you said, now we
(07:39):
are talking about it and I'm herein Brazil looking forward to to know more
and hear more. And by theway, do you compete since you were
like five years old, like,for how long are you competing? Yeah?
So I've been competing for thirty yearswile rolling was kind of the bread
and butter when I started, andas I got old, I got into
(08:01):
the boom running, which you sawin that opening video. There are the
string of logs attached between the twodocks where you run down and back.
And my husband actually is also acompetitor. So as we've you know,
worked our way into the pro ranks, we do the jack and jill sawing
together and then I do the Jilland Jill sawing with my partner, who's
another blog roller as well, SoI dabble kind of on both sides of
(08:22):
the dock, but mainly stick tothe water events. That's that's so cool,
And it is so cool because youlook like being so sweet, you
know, so so delicate, andthen I see these vagus like it's crazy,
that's so nice. Yeah, youget a wide variety of competitors,
you know, you get people workin the logging industry. You know,
(08:45):
I'm an event director. Some peopleare school teachers, some people are a
chemists, some people are attorneys.You know. Our lumberjack community kind of
comes from all backgrounds, and everyoneis so different in what they do and
their history with this sport, andeven down to what, you know,
what they look like. And Ithink that's what is so unique is that
when you turn it on or youcome to watch, you're you just you're
(09:07):
like, wow, who are thesepeople? Where do they come from?
You know, this is a hobbysport for many people. It's not their
full time job. There is decentrize money, but the gear is so
expensive it's typically not enough to makeit a full time job for most folks.
So it is something that people aretraveling on the weekends doing so it
just creates this really kind of uniquelumberjack family that we have. Yeah,
(09:28):
that's very nice. That's very nicein general, you know, all doors
sports the community are so nice.I mean, you can and it is
inspiration for people because people can doanything right, So that's that's very nice.
Yeah. And what type of eventsare there? Yeah, so we
have a variety of events that you'llsee the speed climbing, which was those
(09:50):
really tall poles you saw on thevideo there there's sixty and ninety fek tall
and the guys climb up and down. We call it the looney bin where
we have the speed climbing poles becauseyou've got to have a few screws loose
to convene that event as far asI'm concerned. We've got the log rolling,
which is in the water, avery traditional event. That's an event
(10:11):
that's been around since the inception ofthe Lumberjack World Championships. That's one that
most people have seen before on theboom running came quite a few years later.
Those that's a string of logs attachedacross the center of Lumberjack Bowl there.
And then we've got ax throwing.That one very familiar for many people.
Ax throwing bars are popping up allover the country, so I know
a lot of people have tried thatout these days. Then we've got a
(10:33):
variety of chopping events. We've gotan underhand chop, which is a log
that is below their feet and they'reactually standing on top and just chopping right
in between their feet from both sides. We've got a standing block chop,
which is a vertical log and they'restanding on the deck chopping from both sides.
And then we've got a springboard chopwhere they actually have a tree standing
about a six foot tree standing,they have to chop two pockets in that
(10:56):
tree, placed a springboard in there, and then standing on that top springboard,
which is kind of bouncing and flexing, they have to chop through the
top of the block on top oftheir So again, all of those came
from kind of the skills and thework that those old day lumberjacks that do,
so that's kind of how those cameabout. And then we've got a
variety of sawing events. So we'vegot the hot saw event or the modified
(11:18):
chainsaw events. So these guys typicallyhave old dirt bike or snowmobile engines that
they've put bars and chains on.They're absolutely insane and loud and they out
and beat with them. And thenwe've got some traditional sawing events, so
those old crosscut saws that a lotof people here in the Midwest have hanging
on their walls in their cabins orat these restaurants. The single buck sauce.
(11:41):
We've got a man and a womanwho saw individually in that event.
We've got an event where two mensaw together, so handles on both ends.
We've got an event where two ladiessaw together to lumber jill, so
again to handles on both ends.And then we've got the one event where
we combine the men and the women. It's called the Jack and Jill sawing
event. And that's what my husbandand I do, and that's where we
(12:03):
get the guys in the gals togetherand they work through that log together.
So those are all of the eventsthat you'll see in a weekend that Lumberjack
Bowl, which makes it exciting.You're never just watching the same thing.
There's action going on, there's differentaction going on all over the place.
Yeah, that's lots to do.And when I'm hearing you, I'm wondering
(12:24):
how danger is that. I meananyone has been seriously injuried or something like
that during the competitions. Yeah,I mean what we do is dangerous.
A lot of safety precautions are takenwith the chopping. Specifically, the guys
and gals wear a chain mail kindof like a knight's armor under their pants
(12:46):
and in their shoes, so ifthat acts were to glance or come off
of their log and hit their toeor their shin, it would leave a
pretty good bruise, but it's notactually going to sever anything, so that
keeps those pretty safe. In addition, over on the log rolling side,
we actually have spiked shoes on,so we take soccer cleats, we tear
grind the bottoms off, and weput about they were from fifteen to twenty
(13:09):
quarter inch logging spikes in the bottom. For the most part, our feet
are to sing on top of thelog. But occasionally when you fall you'll
catch a leg or a shin ora thigh or you know who knows how
you're falling, so you'll get alittle cut that way, But that one's
pretty safe. The most dangerous eventthat you'll seek and tested is that speed
climb. Those guys have two gas. They're essentially Lineman's gas that have been
(13:31):
heat and bench so they've been modifiedto allow these guys to literally sprint up
and down those poles. Those thoseare hooked onto their shoes and then they've
got that rope. There's no balletsystem or anything. We've got a safety
rope on the top so that theycan't actually go up and over that pole.
But we have seen some injuries there. But what we do is we
(13:52):
go through a pretty expensive ranking processwith the competition committee and make sure that
everybody competing at our event is qualifiedto be there. So they are the
best of the best, the toptwenty four in each event that have applied.
So we really don't see a lotof injuries because these guys are and
gals are so practiced and they're justsuch professionals and what they do that we
(14:13):
don't see a lot of slip ups. So it does look dangerous, but
we keep it pretty safe. Yes, because I work climb and I use
so many treepmments and then when Isaw these speed climb I was like,
WHOA, that's something else it is. It is unreal. Those guys are
so incredible and just so athletic tobe able to do that, it's just
(14:35):
and that's definitely one of those crowdpleasers, right because people they can't believe
it, and you know a lotof people are scared of heights and everything
else. You know, people havechopped wood or throwing an axe or seeing
a saw, but they see thatspeed climb and they just can't imagine doing
that. So one of those thrillingevents. Yes, it's like a superman
(14:56):
and super women's power and talking aboutthat that has the lumber Jackie World Championship
always being men and women. Yeah, So when it first started in nineteen
sixty, the only women female eventthat was offered was law rolling. Law
rolling was established probably about ten yearsbefore that. There was an organization that
(15:18):
was in charge of these lag rollingcompetitions, and so the law rollers were
kind of established in that sense.The chopping and sign took a little bit
longer, so it wasn't until nineteeneighty four that Jack and Jill sewing was
actually introduced on the stage and thatwas the first time that you saw women
on that chopping and sawing doc Andit was actually Mel Lenz and Charlie Smith
(15:39):
who won that first title. Innineteen eighty four, Mel Lens is still
competing, his son is competing,So it's kind of fun to see that
name as you know, being oneof the first, and he's still around.
These people. These athletes just competewell into you know, their sixties
or seventies. Even we have amaster's division at LWC. So it's really
(16:00):
great to see like that active lifestyleand just that history carrying on and down
through the families. And then actuallythis year we're celebrating thirty years of the
women chopping and sawing on our stage. So nineteen ninety four was the first
year that the women had their ownchopping and their own sawing on the LWC
stage. This was things in goodpart to Penish Hear, Jim Alexander,
(16:23):
and Penny Halberson. They just theyhad these women who just refused to accept
that they weren't allowed to be onthat dock, and they kept pushing and
insisting that they should be there,and then they got there, right they
did. Tina specifically did a lotof work in raising prize money and helping
to establish that and then you know, about three years in it caught on
(16:45):
and they were able to get moreprize money, and then it was accepted
and now we offer just as manywomen's events as we do men's events.
Some of them are open, suchas the speed climb, the springboard,
and the hot Sauce. You don'tsee a lot of, if any,
women entering those events, but wedo have the same opportunities for women as
we do men on our stage,which I am very proud of. I
(17:07):
think that is something that's so important, not only for the people who are
competing, but for younger athletes andyounger generations to see both men and women
on the stage together. Yes,for sure, even though I don't know
much about those people, those womenyou said I like once I am.
(17:29):
I am woman as well. Iam very thankful for women like those women
you just said, who work sohard for open opportunity for the women in
general. So that's very very nice, and that's very nice to see I
sport so open for everyone, forwomen, men, older people, So
(17:56):
that's very nice. And talking allthat, are your kids involved in these
yeah, So I've got two kiddows, they're four and three. They're not
too involved yet, but they dosee me practicing log rolling in the summer.
They see my husband training in thechopping and sewing, so they will
(18:18):
hop on a log. There's stilla lot of handholding at this point.
They do have foam axes. Weordered them from Amazon, so they will
they do some chopping in the backyardand chopping in the house. We have
to talk about, you know,appropriate things to chop and appropriate thing and
not. They definitely get it.This is this is something that they're they've
(18:40):
just grown up around and they're goingto continue to be around. I will
never force them to compete. Ido hope they share the same love for
it as us. Right now,they definitely show that. I'm hoping that
they'll they'll add to those competitor numbersas they get older. Here. You
know, we do offer we don'ttalk about it a lot, but we
do offer an amateur log rolling eventthe Lumberjack World Championships. So in the
(19:03):
morning on Thursday and Friday, wedo open it to amateur lag rollers.
It's the only amateur event we offer, but it's really exciting to see anywhere
from the U seven division all theway up to about seventeen years old.
You see in the amateur division rollingbefore all the pros come out in the
afternoon in the evening, so wereally do see all ages throughout the weekend,
which just it warms my heart.That's very cute. I would love
(19:30):
to see those kids. That's sonice. It is that nice. It
is a nice family time as wellthat you are and your husband arebu genie
with your keats, no teaching likethose nice thinks. And they may compete
as well, but sounds like theyou it is in your blood pretty much,
(19:52):
it is, and you see thema lot in this sport. Actually,
there's a lot of generational athletes.A lot of the guys and gals
who compete their parents have competed,and some of them their grandparents have competed,
so they were truly just born intothe sport. So not only do
you have actual blood families in it, but then because we're all traveling together
on the weekends, our kids areall together all the time, playing and
practicing. Like I said, wejust become one big family. So you
(20:17):
know, our competition, we haveabout one hundred and ten pro athletes that
compete at LWC over the three daystheir Lumberjackeral Championships. It is like one
giant family. It's one big gettogether everyone's in the Athlete ten catching up
and people are coming from all over, right, They're from not only all
over the United States to east coastto west coast here in the Midwest,
(20:37):
but they're coming from internationally. Wehave competitors from Australia, New Zealand,
Japan, Canada, Sweden, theCzech Republic. It just kind of depends
on the year, but we usuallyhave four to five different countries represented on
our stage, which is really great. I mean, we're a town of
twenty five hundred people on a regularday here in northern Wisconsin, so have
(21:00):
all of these international competitors coming toour town and compete is just so special.
Yes, that's nice. And I'msure you guys looking forward to see
to other in the competitions and travelall together and you know, have these
family friends moment in the competition,because in the end of the day,
(21:23):
is not just about winning, right, it is about the community, you
know, like the event itself.So I'm sure you can make lots of
friends and see all of them inthose big events. Must be so nice,
it is, yeah, And forme, you know, as the
(21:44):
event manager, it is about thecompetition and it's about the athletes. Being
an athlete, I have that perspective, but it is about this great community
event for our community too. Imean, we have ticket holders who are
traveling from all over again, peopletruly from I think we had thirty different
states maybe represented last year in ourcrowd, which is awesome. People are
playing their summer vacations around this.Some are driving in and their campers,
(22:07):
some are flying in and spending aweek here, so drawing people to our
community. They're also you know,going downtown and hanging out and shopping and
visiting the local restaurants, visiting LumberjackBowl. So it's really just great to
me that we can have a competitionthat is drawing these people from across the
country to come to our area,come to the north Woods and experience it
(22:30):
and hopefully have such a good timethat they want to come back. Right
there's hunting and fishing and all ofthis other great stuff here ski races,
you know. So it's just greatthat our little community can host these world
class events and really entertain people fromall over. And I'm wondering here,
(22:51):
what was your most memorable time?Why you competing? While competing, my
most memorable moment is getting a bifferentplace in the law rolling. It wasn't
first. I don't know if I'llever reach that point again, just with
where I'm at in life with myfamily and just priorities. But I got
(23:11):
second place to my actually my Jilland Jill sawing partner, so one of
my really good friends, and Irolled for the championship. But you know,
second place isn't so bad. Thewomen's field has just gotten more and
more competitive as the years have goton, and that's just that's a memory
that I don't think i'll ever forget. Just competing on Saturday night at Lumberjack
Bull There's about three thousand people inthere, just backed around there. You
(23:36):
know, the sun is setting.It's just like I get goosebumps talking about
it. It's just such a specialspecial weekend for me and has been since
I grew up here in a competingfor so long. It's just a great
memory for me. And I havea personal question, now, did I
meet Did you meet your husband inthose competitions? We did meet through Lumberjacksports,
(24:02):
Yeah, we met many. We'vebeen together for thirteen years now,
married for five, so I meanwe probably knew each other for five to
ten years before we got together.But yeah, we met through lumberjacksports,
which is which is exciting, right. He's actually originally from upstate, New
York and got started in the sportthrough a collegiate team. So he competed
(24:22):
out at Paul Smith's in New Yorkand then helped to start a team at
Stevens Point here in Wisconsin and gotto start collegiately, which is just kind
of another avenue into lumberjacksports. Howcool. I love it. You can
make friends and also, look,you're find your the level for our life.
(24:42):
We don't know what's going to happenwhen you get down the lumberjack ball,
I tell you, oh so cool. And do you think that the
lumbert Jack World Championship will be anydifferent in the next twenty years? I
hope so so. So we'll backtracka little bit some of the history behind
(25:03):
it back when Tony Wise first startedit, when he was working on just
getting the word out about this competitionand trying to get international competitors here.
One of the big things that hetried to do was get national media,
and the ABC's Wide World of Sportswas one thing that he was able to
get involved. I don't know ifyou are familiar with that or remember that
(25:25):
at all, but it was thisgreat TV show that was on ABC.
Everybody watched it, so Lumberjacksports kindof became a household name at that point.
That was nineteen seventy nine to nineteeneighty two. They actually signed a
contract and the Lumberjack World Championships gotpaid, which was huge back in the
day. You know, it wasabout twelve to thirteen thousand dollars they had
for these TV rights, which backthen was a lot of money. So
(25:48):
that helped to grow the sport andI want to see that happen again.
Now we've got great media that comesin. We've seen great media throughout the
years. We've aired on ESPN three, we've had other ESPN, we had
the Today Show there. You know, we get some really great national media.
But one of my personal goals isto see the Lumberjack World Championships being
aired nationally again, making the sporta household name, making these athletes a
(26:11):
household name, being able to telltheir stories, the people that they are.
All these you know, this isone of probably forty competitions throughout the
summer, and that might even bea low number. There's a few competitions
here in the Midwest, other smallercompetitions. There's some on the East coast
and some on the West coast.But it's this whole circuit going on basically
as soon as it's warm enough tochop wood and roll logs in soft water
(26:34):
not hard water as we call it, so you know, getting it on
TV and getting it nationally known again, they're just more nationally known as one
of my personal goals. In additionto that, even though we offer the
same number of men's events and women'sevents, our women's numbers are always lower
than our men. We typically getmore men applying than women, So I
would love to see the number ofwomen applying, the number of women in
(26:56):
the sport increase and match the mena little bit more. It is steadily
grown over the years thanks to theawesome Just ambassadors and just gals that we
have on the stage. When youwatch them, they're so great with talking
to people. They carry themselves well, and I think it's an inspiration for
other females or maybe at the highschool or collegiate level and are interested in
(27:18):
getting started. And then my leftschool is just get more international competitors.
You know, we do have agood spread, but we typically have about
five to ten maybe each year.I would love to see more people come
over internationally. Obviously it's a bigtrip. Gear is not easy. That's
a whole other podcast we could doabout traveling with your acts and your saws
(27:41):
and forget a hot saw. Myhusband and I have been over to Australia
to compete. He's been all overto compete, but traveling with your gear
just has another layer of complications.Getting more international competitors here would be great,
but I know it's expensive and it'sjust it's a trip for those guys.
Well, you are inspiration. SoI hope that women and girls in
(28:07):
general can compete more. And weare seeing in sports in general that girls
are playing more, so that's verynice. And by the way, we
have a rock star from ESPN inthe show. I didn't know that you
are real rock stars. So youcompete. You are the marketing manager.
(28:33):
You have two kids, you teachthem those amazing stuff, and you also
won the television. You're my beststorm for here just trying to stay busy.
Well, you were doing a greatjob being busy. Well now we
(28:56):
are in my favorite part of theshow. We have some pictures here to
look up, so one can youshow you to us so we can kind
of talk about them if you want, yes, please explain. Yeah,
So this is the men's on yourhandchop. So this is a chop that
(29:18):
if you're getting into the sport,this is usually the first one you're going
to learn. And they are juststarting I believe this is on go because
all of their actes are up together. So they'll chop about halfway through that
block, right in between their dosethere, and then they'll turn around and
finish chopping on the other side.So this is one of just those bread
and butter events that you'll see atevery lumberjack competition. Oh my gosh,
(29:40):
looks danger it sure does, butbelieve it or not, this is one
of the safer ones. And likeI said, they do wear that team
mail under their socks, so safetyprecautions are being taken. You just don't
necessarily see it in a photo.Well, that's very cool and must be
very exciting while just finishes first.Yeah, they're just so fast. It's
(30:04):
I mean, the axe is outof the wood before you know, as
soon as it's in and you're justit's hard to believe how fast they go.
That's pretty coold. So this isactually harder Meredith and I. So
this is the Jill and Jill.That's my husband wedging for us. So
one saw, two handles, andyou're just working your way through that.
(30:25):
This is all about working with yourpartner, right. We can't be pulling
at the same time, we can'tbe pushing at the same time, so
just kind of getting in that rhythm. You do get to use a third
partner or a teammate in this one. And Adam's there holding you see,
he's got a wooden wedge in hishand, and his other hand that's hidden
is using usually a lubricant like aWD forty, so they spray that on
(30:45):
a saw to keep it moving,and then that wedge in the top just
helps separate that that cookie or thatdisc that we're cutting from the log,
so it allows that saw to movea little more freely in there, and
you can see all the noodles orthe wood chips kind of flying off the
end of the saw there. Yeah, that's very cool and I hope you
guys train for that. You finda tree in it, cut it actually,
(31:10):
you'll notice the one that we're usingis perfectly round. So all the
competition woe is lathe turned and it'stypically from the same stand of trees,
and it's all turned to the samesize. That's one unique thing about our
sport is you can never guarantee thatthings are going to be the same.
You don't know when a knut's goingto appear, you know where a branch
(31:30):
was growing or something. So sometimesyou hit a knot, which really slows
these saws down. These saws areso incredibly sharp. If your finger even
touches one of the teeth on thatsaw, you will puncture your skin.
So with that you actually can't youcan't hit a knot without potentially bending or
breaking a tooth. You don't wantit to hit any sand, so you
(31:52):
make sure the log is clean.As soon as we're done, that saw
goes right back in the scabbard.So training is that on the same type
of stuff. You'll find you cutdown trees, typically trees that are a
little bit softer if you're here inthe Midwest, or you know, trees
that will be similar to what you'regoing to be chopping or sawing on.
So white pine or aspin for ushere. Then you take the bark off
(32:15):
because that's that's the rough part there, and you set it in a stand
and this is how we practice.We pull the saw. You typically not
pulling your competition saw in practice.You usually have one that's just for practice,
and then you pull your really sharpone out. After so many pulls
on that saw, you do haveto get it resharpened. They're only about
three guys in the world that dothat. They're all hand fine. Yeah,
(32:39):
and there's a waiting list for it. So it's not like you put
home, you know, you popon the podcast and you're sharpening your sauce.
So again, with the gear isjust it's an add the whole other
level of complexity to the sport.Yeah, so everyone has your own equipments
or the tournament to giv'd for beingmore like equal. Nope, everybody comes
(33:02):
with their own gear. So youkind of have to have a budget too.
The more money you have, thebetter saw you might have. Now
you could have a great saw andnot know how to operate it and not
be a great sayer. So obviouslythe technique and skill has to be there,
but many of these guys and galsare coming to a competition and they've
got two three boxes of axes thatthey're showing up with. Some are showing
(33:23):
up with one box of axes becauseit's all they can afford, or maybe
they just got into this spot andthey haven't, you know, built up
their repertoire essentially. But you're comingwith all your own gear, all your
own axes, all your own saws. You see my front foot there,
not on meritis so much, butmine on the right. That's just another
(33:44):
piece of gear. A lot ofpeople ask about. It's just a block
on the ground so you can putthose on the dock. It just helps
to basically keep your feet studying,gives you some more leverage. Aren't sliding
around. We are both wearing ourlog rolling quirks there. So they've got
those. Those cleats are those adomBut that's just so you have better footing
when you're sawing. Yeah, Inoticed that, But now I understand what
(34:06):
you mean when you said it ishard to travel with your equipment. So
I cannot imagine going to our airplanewith that. They don't want to carry
it on, you know, theyjust tell you it's not thursdaye. So
your eggs become your best friend.So when we pack those up, you
take the handles off, you spendabout ten to fifteen minutes cleaning them use
(34:30):
you know, just like a paintbrush. Again, your wuty forty, get
all the wood chips off, youlub it up, you make sure there's
no other moisture on there, nowater, You put it back in the
wooden scabbard. You screw it shut, and that's how you carry it to
the next competition or to the nextshow. Well, that's lots of work.
Oh there you go. Another shotof it there coming off. So
(34:51):
yeah, you can see, youcan even this is a good one.
In the middle of the log thereyou can see the not so Yeah,
sometimes I slow you down, youknow, And as a competition director,
we try to work to actively avoidhaving that. Now the next person we
would cut into that log to tryto get past that not because not only
does it make the competition unfair,that not slows you down in the song,
(35:13):
but it can ruin someone's gear.So we'll work through those knots as
we go. But that's just apart of our sport. You just can't
every log can't be the same.There's just no log, so we can
get them from the same tree orthe same stand of timber, so they
can be as similar as possible.But that's about as close as you can
get. Yeah, you can allcontrol natural and trace. Sure, as
(35:37):
much as we want to, wesure can't. And that's the beauty all
of the doors. Oh I lovethe debt dog rolling. This is from
this last summer. This is thisis what I love. Right here.
So it's two people on the log. There are three out of five matches,
and you're just trying to stay onlonger than the other person. You're
(36:00):
in your feet, you're concentrating onyour opponent's feet. Blog rolling is it's
very much a cardiovascular spore. Ittakes strength, but it's so mental as
well. You cannot lose your focusfor a half a second or your butt
is in the water. So itjust takes a lot of focus, tuning
everything else out, not letting yourselfget nervous, just kind of doing what
(36:21):
you know how to do out there. That's nice and you can out an
older girl right correct. Yeah,sometimes your hands might touch just with flailing,
but you can't intentionally touch them andyou can't cross that. There's a
center line on the log, youcan't step on or cross that center line.
But other than that, pretty mucheverything else goes. You can dip
(36:42):
your toe in the water and splashedwater in your opponent's eyes. We'll try
to use yeah, I know,right, it's an effective one. We'll
use different maneuvers like kicking the logor changing directions if you're if you can
overpower your opponent to try and throwthem off. In this match, wearing
what's called the bucking so we're facingopposite directions. So when you learn the
(37:02):
log role, you just learn toroll over one shoulder, so I look
over my left shoulder. It's justkind of like riding right or left handed.
You just have a certain way thatyou do it, or riding a
skateboard. So in a bucking match, one of us is always running forward
and one of us is always runningbackward. So ideally you want to maintain
control and be running forward because you'reusually going to be faster on your front
(37:23):
step than you are your backsteps.So there's some strategicy that comes in here
too. WHOA, that's crazy thatthat looks like it's very hard and difficult.
It is. It takes a goodbit to learn to log roll.
It's always best if you start asa kid. You're fearless. As a
(37:44):
kid, your center of gravity islower. When you start as an adult,
it's just your brain is telling youthat this is it wise, you
know, it's it's telling you totake off. Your center of gravity isn't
used to I mean, now he'sit a free floating log. It's spinning,
it's bouncing up and down, youknow. So when I always tell
people, if you can start whenyou're younger, get your kids and know
when they're younger, it's just alot easier for them to learn. WHOA,
(38:07):
that's all nice, and it mustbe very very nice for our kids
growing up learning all those things thatmentally, the physical ba stability. It
is and it's so much fun,right. I love when you can have
sports that are just fun. Imean it's difficult, but you're in the
water, you're splashing around, it'ssummer in Wisconsin. I mean it just
(38:28):
it doesn't get any better than that, right, And these guys are spending
the logs so fast, this wasour championship match from last year. That
sometimes the log just disappears, whichagain makes it even trickier. But these
guys are so good they know wherethat log is that they don't necessarily need
to see it the whole time toknow where it is under their feet.
So just lots of practice, lotsof repetition in the log rolling. The
(38:52):
best rinning for log rolling is logrolling. Nothing compares to it. It
just you can be a runner,you can be a skier, but being
on that log and sprinting back andforth and sprinting in place while the lag
is rotating, just I've never foundanything that can quite compare to that.
Yes, could you say that itis the most difficult competition in the in
(39:14):
the show, I would say it'sone of the tougher ones to learn,
but they all have, you know, they all just have their difficulties.
So I would say log rolling tocompete at the pro level might be one
of the tougher events to learn,but they all kind of carry their own
difficulties, you know, and toperfect that skill level. Yeah, it's
(39:35):
okay. Yeah, So this isOh, that s easier. I like
it. So this is Mike Stullivan, He's won this event many times.
I don't even know how much moneythat some of these guys have into these
saws A new so can run anywherefrom five to ten thousand dollars. Some
of these guys have twenty to thirtythousand dollars in one of these chain saws.
(39:58):
Absolutely incredible. But they will slicethrough three of those wood cookies in
four or five seconds, no problem. I mean, it's yeah, it's
frightening, and they're allowed it.They're allowed yep. So ear protection like
protection here. All safety precautions aretaken with this one. We have extra
guards up in between the stands.But these saws are These saws are fun.
(40:22):
They're fun to watch. People lovewatching the hot saw. I can
picture that for sure. Yep.This is the Jack and Jill so similar.
Now you've got a man and awoman on the end. So I
always think that this one's trickier forthe male because he's got it. Typically
(40:44):
men are stronger than women. That'sjust the case. They're bigger, you
know, whatever it might be.So a lot of times the men,
like especially my husband, he's almostgot to slow down just a little bit
for me, because if he overpowersme, then we're actually going slower,
Whereas if he kind of waits forme at my speed, we can sell
really well together. So again allabout finding your partner, working with them
(41:05):
consistently and just getting into the rhythm. Martha and Jason are great competitors together.
So they're two of the best atthis event. Here. Well it
can be a good couple. Therapyare not send you to therapy. You
just never know. Oh, thereyou go. This is the speed climb.
(41:29):
So these are the luney Bin guyshere. So this is those red
lines. There are the sixty footmarks on our ninety foot trees. We've
got the sixty foot speed climb that'scontested and the ninety foot I believe this
is Devin Blair and Caleb Graves there, so two of our best speed climbers.
Yeah, one gap on the insideof each boot in that rope and
these guys climb up those trees likeyou and I would walk down the street.
(41:52):
It is just amazing to watch them. They make it look so effortless.
Yes, they are so fast,and it seems like they're not even
like tired. I mean, theyjust make it look so easy that you're
like, are you trying? Andyou know they are. You know,
it's incredibly difficult. When they getdone, they're on a press, but
(42:14):
they're so graceful and how they goup and you know how they come down,
and you know it's so tough ontheir bodies because Caleb's already coming down
on the right there. They haveto put one of those gaffs in every
fifteen feet, so they can't justdo a complete refall. But imagine calling
that fast and then having to sticka metal spike into the tree. It's
going to slow you down, right, So part of the finesse there is
(42:37):
getting that gaff in and out withoutslowing you down or you know, pulling
your leg back up or whatever itmight be. So this one really takes
a lot of rhythm and just practiceof getting into that climb and then getting
comfortable with coming down. Yeah,so much technique, so much. This
(43:00):
is the springboard chop, so that'sabout the top half of the tree there.
So those boards that those guys arestanding on are actually slipped into pockets
that they've chopped in the tree.So this one is like the marathon of
the chopping events. It's the longestevent. Hardest part honestly is chopping those
pockets in the tree. I saythat and I've never done it, but
from what I'm told, pocket sothat that board has a metal clip or
(43:24):
a metal shoe on it. Thatshoe has to stick in there. If
they don't get a good pocket,that board could fly out and then they'll
fall down. So it's all aboutgetting a good board, and then you
don't. You can't see it inthe picture. A video is better here,
but that board kind of actually flexesup and down as they're chopping,
so it adds the difficulty here.Not only are you six feet in the
(43:45):
air, so you've got that inyour head, but that board is flexing
up and down as you're chopping through. And then in this one they still
have to turn around and make atleast one chop on the backside of that
log, so when they go tothe backside, they're actually then chopping with
her offhand. So it just hasso many layers of difficulty. This one
is one of the most exciting onesto watch, I think, because it
(44:07):
just requires so much skill and technique. Oh boy, I've never saw that.
I love it, and looks likeit'd be very very difficult. For
sure, it does. And thisone is cool because it again stems from
historically the lumberjacks. They will tooif they were working on the side of
a hill and they needed to geton level ground. They would chop a
(44:29):
pocket in a tree and chop thetree like this, or saw the tree
like this, or sometimes some ofthose larger trees had these really large root
systems and they had to get abovethose to get to the tree to s
chop it down, So they hadto chop pockets and put these springboards in.
I used to live in Colorado andmy husband and I would be hiking.
We would come across these old treesand the sides of the mountains that
(44:51):
would actually have these springboard pockets inthem that were, however, many decades
old, because that's truly how theyused to get up above these roots a
around the side of these hills tochop these trees down. So it's all
about the history. Well there Igo. I've also wondering, Yeah,
this is the X throwing that's actuallyour champion from last year, mister Ben
(45:13):
Whalen. So we used double bittedaxes. A lot of people talk about
going to ax sewing bars, anda lot of them use hatchet. Some
do use these double bitted axes.But the competitors stand from twenty feet away
and they've got to make the axeessentially makes one full rotation on the way
to the target, and the highestscore winds perfect scores of fifteen. You're
(45:35):
looking hit that bullseye. Oh boy, I always see that on movies and
stuff like that, and I alwayswanted to try. So so much fun.
Well, come to Hayward first oneof August. This is a boom
run, So this is another thrillerfor the crowd. These guys and gals
(45:57):
sprint down across the logs and thenthey run around a barrel and come back.
So again, these logs are freefloating. As you can see,
they're going up and down. They'llspin back and forth. It's incredibly difficult.
It is so much fun to doand it's so much fun to watch.
They can fall in. You canfall in up to three times and
then you're out. But you canfall in and hot back up, so
the crowd really gets invested when youfall in. They're cheering for you to
(46:21):
get back on, which is obviouslyvery difficult because the water is you know,
up to your chest or neck inthe middle. There. So just
a really fun one to watch liveit. Well, let's tuan. This
is a historical one. So thisis Ron Hortel. As you can see,
competition shirts were not a thing anddatingld he you know, it's funny,
(46:45):
but he actually brought so much exposureto the sport by chopping without a
shirt on. So stuff like thisreally does sell and you know, really
attractive people. But this this photois from Lumberjack ol right where we still
chop. You know, we havenew bleachers, we might have a new
doc. But it's really cool thatwe're in the same spot that the Lumberjack
(47:07):
World Championships, you know, firstkind of got it start. So this
is I just love old photos likethis. Nowadays everyone has to wear their
shirt. We keep it PG.But I'm sure people would be much more
excited to see stuff like this.Oh yeah, I love it. Well
that's all. And uh what andif if people want to be part and
(47:32):
do those uh those crazy stuff,what they need to do? They need
to be a super women and superman. How how it works? Yeah,
that's essentially it. I mean no, I'm just kidding. All the ways
you can get started. So Ikind of mentioned the one earlier. Getting
involved Collegiately, there are a lotof schools, specifically here in the Midwest
(47:53):
out in the northeast and northwest.A lot of colleges have timber sport teams,
some high schools, so they getstarted that way. Otherwise connecting with
a local pro so you can alwaysyou know, email us and you can
see where you're located and we canhelp get with the pro. A lot
of people just get started by goingand training with pros and they just they
(48:13):
watch and they learn. And thelast way and not everyone does this successfully,
is YouTube. We have one lumberjackwho started watching YouTube videos was kind
of self taught. I mean he'ssince trained with other people. He's now
an excellent competitor, but he reallytaught himself off of YouTube. So thank
goodness for the Internet and things likeYouTube and people are able to teach themselves
(48:36):
all of these great skills. Sothere are men get involved if you really
want to and you really have apassion for this, that's cool And where
can people connect? So if youonline if they want to learn traw you
so you can connect with the LumberjackWorld Championships on Instagram at Lumberjack Champs,
(48:58):
on Facebook at Lumberjack World Championships,or on YouTube at Lumberjack World Championships.
I'm on all those pages all thetime, checking in with people helping the
post, and I'm also available viaemail at info at Lumberjackworld Championships dot com.
Or you can visit our website LumberjackBowl dot com and see you know,
(49:21):
we've got our store on there.We're working on getting some more history
up. We've got athlete bios onthere, more about the competition this year,
how to buy tickets, and welove to have everybody come join us
and heyward this summer. Well guys, so joy joined the competition. Well
Samantha, thank you very sorry,thank you very much for being our guest.
(49:43):
It was very lovely to hear yourhistories and see your pictures and see
how we your rocket. You arereally rockstar and superhero. So thank you
very much for being the show.Yeah, thanks for having me. I
appreciate you. Guy was asking meto be on and talk more about it.
Anytime I can talk about Lumberjack Sportsand the Lumberjack World Championships. I
(50:06):
am one half of Yale wow uh, and I want to thank you,
thank you guys for follow the show, and thank you for the audience for
tuning in outdoors. People until Nextweek Choo
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