Lumberjack shows more than just chopping wood

What’s a winter carnival without a lumberjacks show?

Axes chopping wood, chainsaws roaring, cross-cut saws going back and forth across a log.

Men in beards wearing flannel or plaid shirts.

Barrie Winterfest was to have six shows by the Great Canadian Lumberjacks Saturday and Sunday.

For Colin Knispel of Barrie, it was his first lumberjack show up close.

“I like the skill with the chainsaws,” he said from Heritage Park, just after noon on Sunday. “I haven’t seen one in person before, but when I see them on TV I like the chainsaws best.”

Part of the Barrie Winterfest lumberjacks show was carving a rabbit from a log, with a chainsaw.

Bertha Martins, also of Barrie, has a different perspective.

“I prefer the axes to the chainsaws,” she said, “but I like all the things (parts of the show) together. It’s very interesting.”

Clarke Ellah of Ingersoll has owned Great Canadian Lumberjacks for seven years, but was with other lumberjack shows before that.

He’s not surprised by the event’s popularity.

“It’s kind of something different you don’t get to see all the time, and it’s exciting to watch,” he said, before Sunday’s first show at Barrie Winterfest. “If we go to a small town in northern Ontario where they really have the background, you get a different audience there.”

Ellah said being a good lumberjack is hard work.

“It takes a lot of skill, a lot of training goes into it,” he said. “It helps to be big enough to swing the axe, but if you’re not doing it right, you won’t even cut the wood."

“It takes discipline to learn how to properly cut the wood,” he said, noting the chopping axes weigh four to five pounds.

Ellah was asked what is the toughest task or event in the lumberjack show.

“The springboard chop,” he said without hesitation. “You’re up on a board chopping a block of wood.”

Ellah said Great Canadian Lumberjacks is busy with carnivals and shows year-round.

For more, visit: greatcanadianlumberjacks.com .