Lumberjack festivals bring together families to showcase the talents of lumberjacks. Festivals maintain a weekend or week-long list of family-friendly activities.Lumberjack activities feature log rolls and tree climbing. Other activities surround the lumberjack events include sporting events, parades, children’s activities and fireworks.
History
Lumberjack festivals are building traditions within their communities. As of 2011, the Wolverine Lumberjack Festival in Michigan has been running for 30 years, coinciding with the town’s birthday.
Event organizers created a commemorative button depicting a oxen with cart of timber to highlight the town’s trademark. During Lumberjack Festival in Berlin, New Hampshire, tours are available for the nearby Brown House, an historic, chamber of commerce building that was once used a sawmill.
Competitions
These festivals are centered on the lumberjack competitions. Competitions include log rolls (where competitors try to stay afloat on a rolling log in water), chopping lumber, sawing with the buck saw and speed climbs up a wood pole.
The Berlin, New Hampshire, festival features cross-cut, stock chainsaw, women and men’s axe chop and axe throwing. Cross-cutting is lumber cutting where two lumberjacks cut the log horizontally until it’s cut and falls. Chainsaw competitions requires a lumberjack to cut down a tree using a minimum number of cuts.
Usually, chainsaw competitions allow two cuts. In the women and men’s axe chop, the contestants throw an axe to a bull’s eye. The axe handle, blade and throwing distance vary in size. Where most festivals have competitions, some of the events, such as the Stillwater, Minnesota, festival, have lumberjack demonstrations as well.
Parade
Since the first Deposit Lumberjack Festival Parade in 1976 honored the United States celebration of the bicentennial and past local lumberjacks, the Deposit community has held annual parades as part of the lumberjack festival activities.
The Deposit parade includes a lumberjack float. The Stillwater, Minnesota, parade highlights the 2011 Lumberjill, the ceremonial event queen.
Miscellaneous Activities
The Wright City Lumberjack Festival in Missouri features a variety of events beyond the lumberjack competitions. This includes a 5K run, art contest, men’s softball tournament and forestry competition. The Wolverine Lumberjack Festival features a mother-daughter tea party and luncheon. Other festivals provide live music, entertainment and firework finales.