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A School of Hard Knocks

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Garrett Gregorek. Photo by Pat Hendrick.

There’s never been a summer school quite like this one.

Instead of cinderblock walls, picture an outdoor classroom where towering white pines overlook a beautiful lake. Instead of bookbags and laptops, students tote bucksaws and throwing axes.

Nestled on a wooded hill overlooking Lower St. Regis Lake in New York’s Adirondack Mountains, the Adirondack Woodsmen’s School opened shop in July 2010, the brainchild of Paul Smith’s College (PSC) alum Bret McLeod.

“There was a time when every boy growing up in this country knew how to swing an ax,” said McLeod, a PSC faculty member and the coach of the college woodsmen’s team. The new summer school is designed to keep traditional rural skills like ax swinging alive.

This year, the school consisted of two one-week sessions. Students had the option of attending just the first week, but that session was a prerequisite for the second week – unless students had at least two years of collegiate lumberjack experience. Students received college credit for taking the course.

Along with the regular PSC faculty members, the school was staffed with student members of the college’s woodsmen’s team. (Colleges across the Northeast have been competing in woodsmen’s competitions for more than a half century.) Professionals were also on hand to help teach the fine points of competitive woodsman skills, chainsaw maintenance, and life on the pro circuit.

In the first week of school, students learned about the history of Adirondack woodsmen and collegiate competition, fire-building without matches, chainsaw maintenance, handling a crosscut saw, ax-throwing, and birling (log rolling on water). There was also an overnight war canoe expedition that challenged paddling and camping skills.

For those who moved on to the second week, there was an afternoon of training with a timber sports professional, a course on carving out a log to build a crude canoe, advanced training in techniques for felling trees with crosscut saws and axes, an introduction to skidding logs using draft horses, master classes in campfire cooking, orienteering, ax-sharpening, and a concluding team lumberjack competition.

There were 19 students for the opening session of the school and 15 for the second, more advanced week. While there were no lumberjills in attendance, organizers expect that to change, as many college woodsmen’s teams boast strong female contingents.

Although the Adirondack Woodsmen’s School attracted students who were already interested in forestry careers, they weren’t the only ones to participate. “There was a very wide skill set,” McLeod said. “You got those who grew up around it, and you got those from urban areas who grew up with very little experience with hand tools, let alone axes and chainsaws.” That disparity was not a bad thing, as those without prior experience proved to be the most teachable. “By the end, it was a pretty even skill set across the board,” said McLeod.

As the Adirondack Woodsmen’s School came to a close, some students moved on to college forestry programs while others went back to urban homes, with good memories and calloused hands. Some even talked their parents into hauling away large wood blocks so they could practice ax-throwing at home.

And even for people long past their youthful prime, this first-time program has fueled another idea. McLeod said the college has heard from several companies that would like to send groups of employees for spirit-building, mini-woodsmen’s camps. He holds the door open to the possibility. Just imagine it – CEOs using an ax for something besides cutting a budget.

Hard Knocks Gallery

Garrett Gregorek
Garrett Gregorek | Photo: Pat Hendrick
| Photo: Pat Hendrick
| Photo: Pat Hendrick
| Photo: Pat Hendrick
| Photo: Pat Hendrick
Rosie Santerre and Aidan Sericolo
Rosie Santerre and Aidan Sericolo | Photo: Pat Hendrick
| Photo: Pat Hendrick
Nick Hickman, Corey Soules, Aaron Barbolish
Nick Hickman, Corey Soules, Aaron Barbolish | Photo: Pat Hendrick
| Photo: Pat Hendrick
| Photo: Pat Hendrick
| Photo: Pat Hendrick
| Photo: Pat Hendrick
| Photo: Pat Hendrick
| Photo: Pat Hendrick
| Photo: Pat Hendrick
| Photo: Pat Hendrick
Aidan Sericolo
Aidan Sericolo | Photo: Pat Hendrick
| Photo: Pat Hendrick
The whole team.
The whole team. | Photo: Pat Hendrick

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