Timber!: The Story of the Lumberjack World Championships

Muscles and Sawdust

Northern Wisconsin was logging country, and Tony Wise knew that very well. In his mind, linking an industry that was one of the most important economic cornerstones of the region with entertainment was an easy leap. Men in plaid were common in the north country. Locals identified with men swinging axes and pulling saws. The Lumberjack Bowl, best known today as a stage for lumberjack shows and competitions, was already in existence. It was a cul-de-sac of water, a massive holding pond where the North Wisconsin Lumber Company stored its logs after they were cut and before they were sent downriver to buyers. So the facility was in place, and the only thing Wise needed was lumberjacks to make the venue come to life again. He knew there were plenty of people with lumberjack skills in the immediate Hayward area, throughout Wisconsin, and sprinkled around the Upper Midwest. He was not concerned with reaching out to them. Those nearby would get the word, take a flyer on a new event, and show up. That wasn’t good enough for Wise, however. He wanted to be the biggest and best right from the get-go, immediately eclipsing any smaller-scale regional contests of lumberjack skills. Wise tirelessly researched and came up with a list of lumberjacks he wanted to invite to Hayward for the first Lumberjack World Championships in 1960. He was operating in a different world a half century ago. He had a tight budget. He had a limited number of lumberjack contacts, and there was no Internet to search to compare credentials. He was initiating 47 Muscles and Sawdust Muscles and Sawdust contact from a small, remote place that many distantly located lumberjacks might not even have heard of, and, unless they were also enthusiastic about cross-country skiing, they would not have heard of him, either. For those who can’t believe that fifty years have passed since 1960, that was the year John F. Kennedy was elected president, the Pittsburgh Pirates stunned the New York Yankees in the World Series on Bill Mazeroski’s famous home run, Marilyn Monroe was the sexiest woman in Hollywood, and a group of men, calling themselves “The Foolish Club,” with as much hardcore passion for football as money in their wallets, formed the American Football League. Wise did not receive nearly as much ink or airtime as any of those other people or sports developments he shared the year’s headlines with, although as someone whose businesses thrived on publicity, he would have craved it. He made do, learning on the fly what worked, what appealed to fans, what would entice lumberjacks to Hayward. There was a streak of promotional genius coursing through Tony Wise, and each time he came up with a fresh idea he could call on his experience in making his previous best idea become a reality. In the same way promoter and circus impresario P. T. Barnum understood how to please public ticket buyers, Wise knew how to tap the trait in humans that made them want to come to his Hayward installations for a good time whether it was to enjoy the outdoors in winter on their skis or to relive a part of America’s bygone era when lumberjacks were lumberjacks and trees were trees, not sacred objects in nature. Wise knew how to insinuate into the heads of tourists the message that these were the type of men who conquered the frontier and built their homes. Historyland and lumberjacks. Come on down. Step into the past. The lumberjacks came, and so did the people. In a land that was just starting to embrace pro football with unprecedented fervor but devoured boxing matches, horse races, college football, and, of course, baseball, the national pastime, timber sports did not have a niche. But they were quirky, they were unusual, and they added a different dimension to the sports menu. America was coming out of the bland 1950s, when families fled from urban environments to the suburbs, when reliance on the automobile exploded, and when inventors more or less between wars (Vietnam had yet to heat up) poured their energy into peacetime projects like bringing the nation’s youth what it wanted most—the hula hoop. Unlike the American Birkebeiner (still to come on Wise’s list of creations), an event designed for the masses, the Lumberjack World 48 Muscles and Sawdust...