Flying Axes: forest sports festival results

Double Buck Saw event, Fairbanks Experiment Farm, Oct. 3, 2009. UAF photo by Maureen McCombs

The 12th Annual Farthest North Forest Sports Festival, held Saturday, October 3, saw contestants pitching logs, building fires, and falling in the ice-cold water of Ballaine Lake in this traditional logging and forestry skills competition. "Weather and turnout were great," said Dr. David Valentine of the event. Teams (4- and 2-person) included AWGPT, Benthos, Crumb Buns, Dark Horse, Dutch Oven, the Expired Tags, Jersey, No Shamin' LadyJacks, No Team (and No Team!), Paxon, the Strangers, Spiklets & Slivers, Team Green, Team Hangover, the Tree Toppers, Watershed & Co., Whatever, and the Wood Chuck'rs. (For several of these teams, curiously--or perhaps not so curiously--no names are listed on the score sheet.) Winners in the various events were:

Belle of the Woods (overall female winner): Kristen Shake

Bull of the Woods (overall male winner): Jamie Hollingsworth

Team Winner: Paxon (including John Hogue, Patrick Pritchett, Amy Rath, and Kristen Shake)

Axe Throw (female): Kim Curtis

Axe Throw (male): Raymond Johnson

Birling (female): Lisa Beatie

Birling (male): Matt McAnder

Bow Saw (female): Kristen Shake

Bow Saw (male): Chris Garber-Slaght

Double Buck Saw (female): Amy Rath and Kristen Shake

Double Buck Saw (male): Jamie Hollingsworth and Tom Malone

Double Buck Saw (Jack & Jill): Jamie Hollingsworth and Kristen Shake

Fire Building (two-person team): Chris Garber-Slaght and Danny Jenson

Pulp Toss (four-person team): the Tree Toppers (including Adrian Baer, Brenden Bruns, Chris Garber-Slaght, and Gabe Peasemadore)

One of the participating teams. UAF photo by Maureen McCombs

The October 6, 2009 Sun Star has a full center spread of photos from the festival.

Highlights from some of the previous forest sports festivals:

2008: "Farthest North Forest Sports Festival participants show off their skills in contest," Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Oct. 5, 2008. See also this award-winning photo by UAF photographer Todd Paris.

2007: News-Miner photo from the 10th forest fest fire-building event, and the cover story from the October 9 Sun Star. See also this birling photo by Todd Paris (brrr!).

2005: "Farthest North Forest Sports Festival," by Tav Ammu, Sun Star, Oct. 4, 2005. Photos by Todd Paris from this year are also available.

2004: UAF photo by Todd Paris from the 7th festival.

2003: rules and links for the 6th annual festival.

2002: Dr. Scott Rupp's faculty page features a PowerPoint slideshow download of the 5th forest sports festival.

1999 Photos from the 2nd Annual festival.

1998: the first year! Harry Bader, Jamie Hollingsworth, and John Fox, along with a few others, came up with the idea and put it into action.