Lumberjack Sports
Timber sports — lumberjack competitions, woodsman contests — are alive and loud across the country: crosscut saws the length of a truck bed, racing axes through pine in seconds, springboard climbs, log rolling, and hot saws built from snowmobile engines. Here is who runs it, what the events are, and how you get from the bleachers onto the wood.
There is no single governing body. The sport runs on a few primary circuits and a wide bed of independent regional shows, and each rung has a different job.
The professional circuit
Founded in 1985 by STIHL, this is the sport's premier worldwide series: standardized rules across six core disciplines, regional US qualifiers feeding a national championship, a world championship, and televised broadcasts. If a competitor is a household name in this sport, this is the circuit that made them one.
stihl-timbersports.com →The oldest big show
Held every July at the Lumberjack Bowl in Hayward, Wisconsin, and one of the oldest and most prestigious independent competitions anywhere. It draws lumberjacks and lumberjills from around the world, and it is the one that adds the water: log rolling, boom running, and speed climbing alongside the chopping and sawing.
lumberjackworldchampionships.com →The grassroots sanctioning body
Sanctions regional events across the country, publishes standardized safety and competition rules, and tracks athlete points across grassroots circuits. For most working competitors this is where a season actually happens: county fairs, timber festivals, and regional shows running under ALA rules.
americanlumberjacks.com →The feeder system
Dozens of universities — mostly forestry and agricultural schools such as Penn State, the University of Montana, Auburn, and NC State — field woodsmen teams that compete in intercollegiate meets. For a young athlete, joining a college woodsmen club is the single most common way into the sport.
Most professional and amateur cards are combinations of these classics. The first three are axe events, the next four are saw events, and the last one is why you bring a towel.
| Event | Tool | What happens | Footage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Underhand chop | Racing axe | Stand on top of a secured horizontal log and chop through it with an axe swinging between your feet. The event that makes first-time spectators hold their breath. | WatchUnderhand chop footage on the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS YouTube channel (opens in a new tab) |
| Standing block chop | Racing axe | Chop through a vertical block at roughly shoulder height as fast as possible — the closest event to felling a tree with an axe. | WatchStanding block chop footage on the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS YouTube channel (opens in a new tab) |
| Springboard | Axe + boards | Cut pockets into a tall pole, set springboards into them, climb your own boards, and chop off the top block while balancing high off the ground. The most athletic event on the card. | WatchSpringboard footage on the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS YouTube channel (opens in a new tab) |
| Single buck | 6–7 ft crosscut saw | One competitor pulls a crosscut saw the size of a canoe paddle rack through an 18-to-20-inch pine log. Raw power against a single cut. | WatchSingle buck footage on the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS YouTube channel (opens in a new tab) |
| Jack & Jill double buck | 2-person crosscut saw | A two-person team — one man, one woman — on either end of a hand-operated crosscut saw. Rhythm wins it, not just muscle. | WatchJack & Jill double buck footage on the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS YouTube channel (opens in a new tab) |
| Stock saw | Stock chainsaw | Identical off-the-shelf chainsaws for every competitor, so the race is pure technique: down, up, and through the log inside a marked band. | WatchStock saw footage on the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS YouTube channel (opens in a new tab) |
| Hot saw | Custom drag-race saw | Purpose-built chainsaws running modified engines — snowmobile and motorcycle powerplants are common — through three cuts in a few seconds. The loudest event in the sport. | WatchHot saw footage on the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS YouTube channel (opens in a new tab) |
| Log rolling & boom running | Spiked shoes, cold water | The water events, at their biggest at the Lumberjack World Championships: stay upright on a spinning log while your opponent goes swimming, or sprint across a chain of floating logs and back. | WatchLog rolling & boom running footage on the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS YouTube channel (opens in a new tab) |
Every “Watch” link opens that event’s footage onthe STIHL TIMBERSPORTS channel, the professional circuit’s own. AXE USA is not affiliated with STIHL and earns nothing from these links — they are here because that circuit films its own events and the water events are best understood by watching somebody fall in.
The season runs heavily from late spring through autumn, and the timber states carry most of it.
Late spring – summer
Regional events, East and West, feeding the US national championship and from there the world championship.
Every July
Lumberjack Bowl, Hayward, Wisconsin — three days of chopping, sawing, climbing, and the water events.
Summer – autumn
Open and sanctioned shows across the timber states: the Paul Bunyan Show in Ohio, the Morton Loggers' Jubilee in Washington, and county fairs throughout the South and the Lake States.
You do not need to be a professional logger — today's competitors come from every background. The path is the same one most of the current pros walked, in this order.
If you attend — or live near — a university with a forestry program, its woodsmen club is the front door: equipment to learn on, coaching, and a meet schedule. This is where most of today's professionals started.
STIHL TIMBERSPORTS runs rookie academies and beginner camps that teach the parts you cannot safely teach yourself: axe swing geometry, footwork on the block, and saw setup and maintenance.
Independent timber festivals accept open entries, and ALA-sanctioned events give you standardized rules and a points record. This is where you build documented cut times.
The big invitationals — the Lumberjack World Championships, the STIHL series — expect a competitive resume: proven cut times and letters from established competitors. The grassroots season is how you earn its contents.
If you compete, coach, or run a show anywhere in the South, tell the rest of us onStump Talk — and if your crew wants a piece of practice wood, someone on thenetwork has a log they will never miss.
The circuits' own sites, which carry the current rules, schedules, and entry requirements.
STIHL
The professional circuit: disciplines, rules, qualifiers, and championship results.
Lumberjack World Championships Foundation, Hayward, WI
Event schedule, disciplines including the water events, and tickets — sold only through the foundation's own platform.
ALA
Sanctioned regional events, standardized competition and safety rules, and athlete points.