Lumberjack sports celebrate history of West Virginia's logging industry at Forest Festival
Oct. 9—ELKINS — An ax strike chips pieces of wood off of the long timber log Arden Cogar Jr. is chopping.
He's already fallen behind the two other lumberjacks, and one of them has already felled their own log. However, it's no longer about the race.
It's a tough log, probably tougher than the ones the other competitors face, but it will come down, and Cogar is not afraid to ask for help to do it. Trading off with another lumberjack, COgar places precision strikes against the wood, slowly but surely gaining ground against the unyielding timber. Finally, he places his last blow and the log splits in two, coming down close to where he aimed.
Doubled over, he catches his breath. "That was painful," he said. However, he is not defeated. There is still another competitive event.
Cogar is a professional lumberjack sports competitor. He began his lumberjack sports career in college at West Virginia Universityt, and has been a part of the sport for 35 years.
"From an athletic standpoint, my best years are behind me," Cogar said. "But I still enjoy doing it. I'm still competitive with young guys. I don't know if you can tell but right now I'm walking on a treadmill at 3.3 and a five incline. I'll be on here for six miles. And that's one of the things I do every morning to keep myself in good physical condition to be able to compete in the sport, as well as hopefully maintain my longevity as an athlete."
Cogar more than keeps up.
While younger guys blast away with power, Cogar blows past them with finesse and technique during competition. If he. struggled with that standing log, a more inexperienced lumberjack would have had to work three times as hard. Fellow emcee Scooter Cogar explained during the event that the mark of experience when it comes to chopping wood can be determined by how many chips fly off the wood during events.
Small piles of sawdust and wood can be found in front of competitors after the chopping stops. Cogar Jr. on the other hand, only leaves behind a few large, clean pieces.
Despite that, maintaining his physical fitness takes precedence over skill development for Cogar Jr. these days. At 58, he's had a long time to hone his chopping.
Forestry has a long history in West Virginia, and with it, lumberjack sports. Cogar Jr. said mining and timber are the industries that made the state what it is. Everything in the West Virginia Forest Festival lumberjack competition held Saturday has its roots in practices from the timber industry.
For example, the springboard chop. In it, lumberjacks hack notches into a standing log of wood several feet high. Once a notch is deep enough, they wedge a springboard into the wood, allowing a lumberjack to climb up higher on the log. The goal is to chop at a piece of wood screwed into the top of the log in half. Although most competitions only call for two springboards of height, in Australia lumberjacks will go up to three, allowing them to get very high up on a log.
The event evolved from the need to bypass the gnarled and knotted lower parts of a tree and reach the softer wood that lay higher up. Using the springboard method, lumberjacks could reach higher altitudes using these makeshift scaffolds. One more element turned that technique into a competition.
"Well, men, by nature, are highly competitive," Cogar Jr. said. "The crews at the various logging camps used to challenge one another to see who could get the most trees on the ground or who could chop the fastest versus chop the longest and these inter-camp competitions led to lumberjack sports. Eventually they were crowned the camp champion or the bull of the woods. Then that bull of the woods would go and compete against the neighboring hand champion. And these hand champions would culminate at the Mountain State Forest Festival."
Cogar Jr.'s family has been involved in the sport for multiple generations. One of his great uncles competed in the 1930s. His father chopped wood at the Forest Festival in the 50s and his grandfather was also a competitor. The Cogar family name was ubiquitous at the competition. Cogar Jr. himself has been chopping wood since he was 5 years old, working for his father's firewood business. He called the ax and wood his babysitter.
"You just have to keep up with him," Kristy Cogar, his wife, said. She's an IT worker and also competes and shares event duties with him. "He's got so much energy and he's been doing this since he was a kid. He doesn't have to think. He knows all the rules. He knows all the people, it's in his blood. It's so fun."
Kristy Cogar got into the sport through her husband. Together, they've been chopping wood competitively for 20 years. She competes in the two person cut event. She was one of several women who competed, including one pregnant woman and her husband. Together they made the saw event look easy, even if it was anything but.
Male competition may have created the sport but female nurturing keeps it alive. The lumberjack community has turned into a welcoming place, with more women joining the sport. Kendall Hill and Chrissy Neuenschwander are both WVU alumni who were part of the forestry club at the school. They've both been in it a little over a year ago. Although they hadn't officially registered for the event, they still enjoyed a moment to chop some wood with the more seasoned pros. One even coached them during their turn on stage.
"It was really intimidating at first, standing in a crowd and watching from afar," Neuenschwander said. "But, once I was up there they made us feel like we belonged. That's what makes you want to come back and keep competing and keep trying and getting better."
Cogar Jr. practices civil law when he's not chopping wood on weekends. His father offered him a choice once he realized his son was smarter than him. The younger Cogar could either become a doctor or a lawyer. However, that choice still led back to the woods of West Virginia. Cogar Jr. now represents many people in the timber industry.
Tasmania is next on the circuit for Cogar Jr. He will spend the Christmas Holidays competing there. Lumberjack competition has bestowed the privilege of travel upon him. He's had the opportunity to see many different places in the world.
"I truly believe that my father dragging me all over the world to these lumberjack contests really opened my eyes as to what was out there," he said. "What that made me realize is how wonderful West Virginia actually is. For that I will always be a very proud citizen and mountaineer, because what we have is amazing. There's no better place to be than in the mountains of West Virginia."
Reach Esteban at efernandez@timeswv.com
