FUN AND GAMES

PALMER — The Valley reigns as the toughest in a state famous for its tough women.

That grit was on display Sunday during the annual Homesteader Games at the Alaska State Fair, where “Chickaloon” Jenny Baer and Palmer’s Lois Repnow flexed their pioneer muscle.

For Baer, it was a return to competition after taking the past four years off. Before then, she competed in the Homesteader Games for about a decade. On Sunday, Baer showed she hasn’t lost her touch, winning the women’s cross-cut saw and bow saw events.

“I’m getting smart,” she said. “I’m not going to do the water hauling.”

Cutting wood is her specialty.

“One year on the bow saw about five years back I beat not only all the women’s times, but all the men as well,” she said, adding there isn’t any special training involved. “I just show up. But back when I lived at King’s Lake Camp, we did all our wood cutting with a cross-cut.”

Repnow was second in the cross-cut and water hauling and third with the bow saw. Along with husband Kelly, the couple turned the Homesteader Games into a Palmer playground. He won wood splitting and was second in cross-cut saw and ax throwing.

“We usually come every year to the fair and the past couple years we’ve been doing the games,” Lois said. “Then we get here and it’s pretty hard work, then I think, ‘What am I doing this for again?’”

Part of that answer is her five children. Having them watch her work hard and be a good sport is an important example, she said.

“It shows them the importance of participating,” she said.

While the saw events were bogged down by logs saturated by this summer’s wet weather, Kelly flew through wood splitting.

“That wood was great this year,” he said. “Some years you can get some logs with knots in them, but this year they’re all pretty clear, so it makes for good splitting.”

Moisture in the cottonwood logs made them difficult to cut, Baer said. For example, her winning time on the bow saw was over 1 minute.

“It’s some really wet, dense cottonwood today,” she said. “I think my fastest time ever was, like, 14 seconds.”

She was proud to represent Alaska women at the state fair, saying females from the Last Frontier can compete with anyone.

“If they’re northern California women, maybe they can (compete), but I’ll take on a Montana woman anytime,” she said.

On the men’s side, Baer’s son Adrian, 23, lived up to his family tradition, placing second in cross-cut and third in wood splitting. Adrian’s a University of Alaska Fairbanks student and Palmer High School graduate.

The saw “was pretty darn slow,” he said. “It’s wet and it’s cottonwood, which is not really the kind of log you want to do a cross-cut on. It’s hard to get a really nice groove.”

While the Baers and Repnows represented Valley families in the games, AJ Clauson was a newcomer to the competition and the state. He was recently assigned to Fort Richardson and entered the Homesteader Games because “a girlfriend in the church asked me to do it, so I went along with it and am having fun.”

He wasn’t having much fun splitting wood, however, when he broke the head off his ax after a couple of hard swings.

“That third swing I just did with every bit of anger I had built up,” he said. But that wasn’t much of an obstacle for a military man trained to improvise. “I am a city boy, definitely when it comes to cutting wood. But you adapt and overcome.”

When he wasn’t on stage giving the competitors and crowd something to listen to, Hobo Jim showed why it may not be a good idea to be a heckler at one of his shows. The crooner defended his 2009 ax throwing title with another first-place finish.

Contact Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.

2010 Homesteader Games

Sunday, Alaska State Fairgrounds

Men’s Ax Throwing:

1. Hobo Jim; 2. Kelly Repnow; 3. Josh (last name unknown).

Women’s Ax Throwing:

1. Megan Bladow; 2. Carole McKee.

Men’s Cross-Cut Saw:

1. Eli Engelken and Mark Much; 2. Adrian Baer and Kelly Repnow; 3. Lane Rau and Frank Dias.

Women’s Cross-Cut Saw:

1. Jenny Baer and Regina (last name unknown); 2. Lois Repnow and Corinne Smyth; 3. Megan Bladow and Petra Banks.

Wood Splitting

1. Kelly Repnow; 2. Lane Rau; 3. Adrian Baer.

Water Hauling

1. Carole McKee; 2. Lois Repnow; 3. Megan Bladow.

Women’s Bow Saw

1. Jenny Baer; 2. Violette Urgitus; 3. Lois Repnow.

Men’s Bow Saw

No results; the saw blade broke during the competition and the men couldn’t finish.