Not many people would call Bangor one of the three great cities in North America today. But at the height of the state’s lumber industry in the late 1800s, the idea wasn’t so far-fetched.
The University of Maine’s Woodsmen Team draws from that tradition every day in its attempt to educate and provide students competition opportunities outside the realm of normal sports, and it’s been successful in that venture since its inception 40 years ago.
According to the club’s website, this team is “a co-ed organization dedicated to maintaining the old woods skills and competing on the intercollegiate level throughout the Northeast and Canada.”
Bangor was once the lumber capital of the world. Thanks to this longstanding student organization, a glimpse of that history still remains in the area.
“It’s mostly just for people to have fun and do something that’s a little bit different,” said Joe Roy, a fifth-year wildlife ecology major and veteran Woodsmen Team member. “We log in Maine. A lot of people have a logging history, and a lot of us did firewood and this and that growing up. This is just a way to compete in those things.”
The team, which also does small wood jobs for faculty and community members in addition to their practices and competitions, competes against teams throughout the region and Canada including: Unity College and Colby College in Maine; the University of New Hampshire; the University of Connecticut; the University of Vermont; the University of New Brunswick; Dartmouth College; and others.
They’ve had three competitions so far this academic year, including a home event held on Feb. 22 in which the women took home first place and the two men’s teams took home second and sixth, respectively. They are scheduled to compete at Colby College April 12 before preparing for the Northeast Regional event in New York near the end of the month.
Although the Woodsmen Team generally draws forestry and wildlife majors to its ranks, Roy said that they welcome all students to join the team regardless of their area of study.
“It’s a little different [than other club teams and sports on campus],” he said. “It’s still a club, but with other club teams, you still have to try out and actually make the team. Whereas with us, anybody can come in regardless of experience. We have people on the team who have never touched an ax or a chainsaw before they came here, and we also have people who were doing this stuff in high school.
“It’s a great learning experience,” he added. “People come in and they don’t know anything, and when they leave they know how to use a chainsaw safely — they know how to use proper safety equipment. You’ll know how to split your own firewood safely, and you’ll understand that doing your own firewood is still a thing that people actually do.”
Six people from each team compete at each meet in various events — six singles events, three doubles events, two triples events and several team events. Although there are multiple ways these meets are ultimately decided, they are usually scored similarly to that of a track and field meet – where each event is worth a certain number of points and the total scores from each are tallied at the end to determine the overall team winner.
Some of the events include, but are not limited to: the cross-cut, the bow saw, the log roll, fire building, the axe throw, the speed chop, the pulp toss and the quarter split. Just as the events themselves vary, so are the goals the team sets for itself heading into a meet.
“Some of us know that we have the ability to compete against the top teams like Unity [College] in certain events,” Roy — whose favorite events are the underhand chop, the standing block chop, the pulp toss and the triathlon — said. “The newcomers usually try and top the personal bests they’ve set to that point. Obviously the goal is to win, but overall it’s about improving.”
All of the events are designed to simulate traditional logging activities from the turn of the century, according to the team website, and each tests a different strength. In other words, you don’t have to be the Brauny Man to compete against the top collegiate woodsmen in the region.
“One thing that’s nice about the Woodsmen Team is that there’s something for everyone,” Roy said. “Even if you’re not the burliest woodsman, there are still technique-based events like fire building that you can excel at. It’s not like some sports where you have to be a certain body type to do it.”
The senior also commented on how much better this team has gotten, even in the few years he’s been a regular.
“Last year, it was more like people were going into events looking for more individual success,” he said. “This year, we’re becoming much more competitive as a team. Practice is becoming much more serious and involved. I think coming in second and beating Unity [considered the top team in Maine and one of the best in the region] at our UMaine event in some of our chopping events really caused us all to realize that we are becoming a lot more competitive than we were.”
In addition to Roy, team members include: Team President Nicole Whitney, Megan Woods, Chris Nystrom, Brad Jones, Brendan Giroux, Drew Johnson, Bronte Sone, Tom Kmetz, Colin Bridge-Koenigsberg, Julie M. Churchill, Gradeigh Cameron, Megan Dood, Mike Bunero, Tish Carr, Julia Osborn, Kirsha Finemore, Justin Richards, Sam Preston and Ian Hay.
Roy says that one of the best parts about this club is the fact that he gets to compete outside in events that really cater to the passion he already has for working in the woods, but that the greatest lesson comes in the knowledge you retain that will stick with you long after you leave the Orono campus.
“Even if you’re not necessarily going to be using a chainsaw or what have you all the time, you at least now know safety measures and how to operate it and be safe around it,” he said. “That’s a life skill that’s slowly becoming less and less common, but it’s also a skill that could prove extremely valuable to you one day.”
The UMaine Woodsmen Team can be found online on Facebook and Twitter, as well as on the UMaine website.