Lumberjacks of all trades

PALMER — “You stole my Betty-Lou from me! I saw you put your arm around her last night at the Sluice Box!” wails Mark Bouquin as he emerges from a little log cabin situated in the SBS Woodlot at the Alaska State Fair. In his hand, he holds a plaid, makeshift jousting stick.

“He’s a liar! Anyone who has ever seen Betty-Lou, knows I wouldn’t be able to fit one arm around her,” Derrick Knutson playfully quips. “Besides, why would I have to steal something I could borrow whenever I want?”

On cue, the packed bleachers at the SBS Woodlot burst into a cacophony of laughter and boos. After 25 years of Lumberjack shows at the Alaska State Fair, this is a bit that is all too familiar to most Alaskans.

“We always hear the same thing over and over again from the audience; ‘we come to the show every year and we know all the lines but we don’t care! We love it,’” explained the show’s emcee Timber Tina Scheer.

Scheer, who it’s rumored was born with a crosscut saw in her hand, grew up in the birthplace of the Lumberjack World Championships — Hayward, Wisconsin.

“You know, I was doing log rolling as a little kid in the late-60s. My brothers and I started with log rolling and then moved on to crosscut saws and axes,” Scheer said with fitting nonchalance. “A lot of the kids I grew up competing with are still working in the sport 50 years later. Some even have grandchildren and great grandchildren in the sport now.”

In the world of timbersports and lumberjack shows, the Scheer family is a household name.

“My brother and his friend also started a show tourist based show in northern Wisconsin and it’s really has been a family affair since the beginning. That show is still going strong nearly 40 years later. My other brother left Wisconsin and started his own show in Ketchikan,” said Scheer. “Of course, I have my own show in Maine that I opened in 1996. As far as I know, I am the only woman in the world to own a lumberjack show.”

With a contagious passion for timbersports, it’s hardly surprising that running her own show is just one of the amazing things Scheer has done in the sport. She’s also the founder of the World Champion Lumberjills who were the first all-women logging sports team. Additionally, Scheer sponsored and promoted the first women’s Underhand Chopping and Cross Cut Sawing events at the Lumberjack World Championships in Hayward, Wisconsin and at The Royal Sydney Show in Australia. If that wasn’t enough, Scheer also managed to win the Jack and Jill World Cross Cut Championships while she was pregnant.

“That was one of my most favorite things,” recalled Scheer. “I feel really lucky to have accomplished a lot in the sport on my own.”

Of course, Scheer isn’t the only one bringing undeniable talent to the SBS Woodlot. Her crew of Derrick Knutson, Marvin Weeks and Mark Bouquin came to Alaska with some pretty impressive credentials.

Knutson is a two-time World Champion Speed Climber and a three-time Iron Jack Champion, Bouquin was the winner of Season 1 of Fox’s “American Grit” and Weeks has been chopping wood with the Lumberjack Show for 20 years.

“I grew up in timber sports; my mom and dad were competitors, so, I just got started at a really young age doing log rolling and continued to do it through high school because I loved it,” said Knutson, who still competes in timbersports when he’s not running his tree service business. “Even though I have been doing this for a while and have won some events, I am most proud of teaching my wife how to single buck [crosscut saw],” Knutson said. “She actually won the semi-pro world championship a couple years ago and that was pretty cool.”

While Knutson and Scheer were early adopters of timbersports, Bouquin and Weeks got their start later in life.

“I got started at Paul Smith’s College when I was a freshman. Honestly, I didn’t really know anything about the sport when I was growing up but there’s actually a pretty big college circuit for lumberjacks in the Midwest and Canada. Some of the colleges even compete internationally,” explained Bouquin.

The STIHL Timbersports Collegiate Series was established in 2003 and has been steadily growing in popularity. Currently, 62 colleges and universities divided into five regions across the U.S. and Canada, compete yearly for top honors. The collegiate titleholder earns an automatic entrance into the following year’s STIHL Timbersports Professional Series.

“I also started at the college level at an agricultural school in Nova Scotia. After I was done with college I just kept competing and doing shows,” added Weeks, who now works as a Service Manager at GM when he isn’t log rolling at the Alaska State Fair. “I use my vacation time to come up here and do this. All of this is the fun stuff and I wouldn’t want to spend a vacation any other way. I mean, it’s definitely different if you are doing it all year round but to come up here for two weeks and enjoy being around friends is a great tradeoff.”

Although Knutson, Bouquin and Weeks all claim that they aren’t full-time athletes, all three men boast muscular frames and the kinds of blisters and bruises that only come from lumberjack training.

Scheer interjected that they were being too modest.

“When we were down in San Antonio doing a month-long show, Mark was working out and running every day,” she said. “Derrick also went to Sydney to compete at the Royal Easter Show as part of Team America. They might not want to toot their own horns but I have no problem doing it for them.”

“Well, I did hike the 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail in 99 days,” Bouquin mumbled after being prodded by Scheer.

“He also just won the 22-inch Single Buck Competition at Squamish in British Columbia. That’s a huge accomplishment,” added Scheer. “It was the second year in a row he won and he even shaved off 5 seconds from the year before,” “Man, I am going to have to teach you guys how to talk about yourselves.”

Despite being humble about their accomplishments, Scheer’s lumberjacks have no qualms about wagering on which of them will be the overall winner after their three daily performances.

“Oh, we definitely make some side bets here and there,” said Knutson.

“Yeah, there is a lot of, um, Sluice Box lemonade that gets bet on,” laughed Bouquin. “We are all pretty competitive guys, so we do try and win each event; the winner is never scripted.”

An unfortunate outcome of competing three times a day is that it is not uncommon for the athletes to sustain injuries while performing.

“Well, my biggest injury was when I almost went blind in my left eye,” said Bouquin. “It was from speed climbing, I guess I wasn’t controlling my speed the way I should have and I ended up hitting the crash pad too hard and it caused a hemorrhage in my eye,”

“I almost took my finger off with a chainsaw,” added Weeks.

“Well, I broke my leg in four places and had some screws put in my ankle,” chuckled Knutson. “I’ve torn my ACL, my MCL, my meniscus – I don’t know, I’ve had a lot of injuries. When you get hurt during a show, you just try to keep relaxed and get off stage. Then the show just has to keep going.” Even with three grueling performances a day, injuries and “lemonade” hangovers, Scheer’s crew loves being a part of the Alaska State Fair.

“I think Alaska is the best place we get to perform at because of the general attitude up here,” said Weeks. “I mean people can come out here and whoop and holler and not care what the person sitting next to them thinks. They just do what the feel is right and I think that’s a common Alaskan attitude. I’ve travelled all over the US and Canada doing shows and nobody gets into our show the way that people do up here. The energy that that gives a person is pretty incredible and I think that’s why our show has been so successful over the last 25 years.”

Fred Scheer’s Lumberjack Show runs daily through Sept. 4 in the SBS Woodlot at the Alaska State Fair. Performances are free and begin at 1 p.m., 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. Be sure to bring $10 cash for a souvenir Hare Chair.