Lumberjack contests have evolved from loosely organized gatherings to highly competitive sports events with an international following. Today’s top competitors train intensely to master skills in a variety of judged categories, for example, power and manual sawing, high-speed axe chopping, and axe throwing. In the Northeast, there are active collegiate and professional circuits.
One of the oldest – and best-known – stops on the professional circuit is the New York State Woodsmen’s Field Days, held every August in Boonville. Writer Mark Kuney attended last year’s event, where he admired “the combination of skills, stamina, and participants gutting-it-out!” He also noted the sport’s grassroots nature. Even top competitors typically pay their own way. In Boonville, “some slept in tents or cars overnight on the fairgrounds and then competed all day in the rain. There is a true shared love of their sport, which bonds them together.”
The following are excerpts from Kuney’s interview with Kendall Kunelius, the winner of the Boonville event’s 2019 World’s Open Lumberjill Competition. One of the top-ranked women competitors in the sport, Kunelius works for Blue Seal Feeds and previously coached the University of New Hampshire’s Woodsmen Team.
My growing-up years were spent in Vermont, mostly in Barnet. My siblings and I grew up running around barefoot in fields and forests, and there was rarely a time when we were inside when it was light out.
I would help my father cut and split anywhere from 11 to 15 cords of wood every year so that we could all be warm in the long Vermont winters. Given this background, it didn’t surprise my parents at all when I told them that I had joined the Woodsmen Team at the University of New Hampshire.
How did I discover the sport? Completely by accident. My sophomore year of college, I was riding home from class with one of my friends. She mentioned that she was heading to woodsmen team-practice later, and that I should join her. I was hooked. I’ve been competing professionally now for seven years.
So many people have been role models, mentors, and coaches. The first who comes to mind is a gentleman named Howard Williams, a former coach of the UNH team. My aunt, Bonnie Edmondson, was a two-time women’s national hammer throw champion. She was a driving force behind Title IX and other efforts to help create equal opportunities for women. She since went on to coach at the Rio Olympic Games and was named head coach for the USA Track and Field team competing at the World Games.
I won my first chainsaw at a show. The competition was having a stock saw event for local people (mostly loggers and foresters), and I was allowed to join in. I beat about 30 well-seasoned men of the woods for a Husqvarna 372XP chainsaw. That was the talk of the town for a good month, and none of those men were thrilled to have been beaten by a 20-year-old girl in a chainsaw competition.
Billy (my husband) and I first met at a small show up in Barton, Vermont. After about a month of talking, he boldly asked me to be his jack-and-jill sawing partner. In the lumberjack world, that is pretty much asking someone out.
With my first amount of money saved, I purchased a single bucksaw. $1,400 bucks, I believe. This was about the time that Billy and I were thinking about getting married, and I had told him that instead of a fancy ring, I really just wanted a single saw. I purchased that saw on my own, not knowing that Billy had also been trying to buy it so that he could ask me to marry him! Billy also competes professionally, and we travel much of the season together competing at the same shows. In 2019, we competed at about 35 events all over the United States.
Because I load, unload, and move a lot of feed, my muscles are always in use and I stay pretty fit cardio-wise as well. Truthfully, I don’t go to the gym during the summer. Between work, training, and competing, time is the first limiting factor, but also, I would rather get fit by training instead of running on a treadmill. For the actual event training, I swear by a “quality-over-quantity” method. You can chop 100 blocks, but unless you are training with a purpose or goal in mind, that doesn’t do you any good.
My strongest events are anything to do with sawing: bow saw, single buck, and cross-cut. I have to put double effort into liking the chopping events, but my practice has paid off in those. My weakest event is the axe throw. I don’t have the patience for it.
I’ve had my sights set on the Boonville win ever since my first year there in 2015. This particular title is one that celebrates someone who is a “jack of all trades” or in this case, a “jill of all trades.” With nine events to train for and have gear for, it is extremely difficult to stay focused for the entire day, especially going right from one event into another. It’s a mental, physical, and emotional test.
I call WD-40 my summer perfume. Although, if I happen to spray that for something at work, I get a Pavlov response, begin an adrenaline rush, and start sweating. That is what we smell the most during an event. It’s a conditioned trigger.
How long do I plan to compete? A very long time.
Like, until my body is in a pine box.
Web Extras
Northern Woodlands staff is grateful to Lydia Williams, the photographer who donated the large image of champion lumberjill Kendall Kunelius wielding a chainsaw, which appears above. Thank you!
Lydia also provided a number of other great images. Here are several showing Kendall and her husband Billy competing as jack-and-jill sawing partners.
Follow Kendall’s blog Life of a Lumberjill.
