YO-HO! Lumberjack show a state fair favorite

PALMER — The jokes during the Fred Scheer Lumberjack show haven’t changed in 25 years. Every fall, the stands at the Spenard Builders Supply wood lot fill up three times a day for exhibition competitions between some of the world’s most skilled timbersports athletes. The show is renowned throughout the timbersports community and a sought after destination, even without prize money or trophies as the spoils of a genuine competition.

The Scheer family may be the first family of logging and timbersports. The Fred Scheer Lumberjack show is now run by Fred’s sister, Tina. Their brother Robert created the Iron Jack competition for lumberjacks, not only to include sawing and chopping, but climbing and log rolling. Tina is in charge of scouting some of the premier lumberjacks in the country to bring to the Alaska State Fair. She can’t offer them prize money or trophies, but the backdrop of Pioneer Peak isn’t a bad alternative. Not all elite timbersports athletes even qualify. Lumberjacks must be proficient in multiple disciplines.

“Not just anybody can get on this crew. There’s a criteria you have to meet. You have to be really good, and I have to like you... and you have to be able to drink a lot of beer,” Tina Scheer said.

Rob Waibel competes in logging competitions nearly every weekend, when he is not logging or teaching. One of his many students now joins him amongst the logs, limbs, and wood chips, ready to go to battle with a cross cut or chainsaw. Waibel has multiple Iron Jack championships. Up-and-comer Ralphie Hattershide has not.

“He was my student. Now he kicks my butt,” Waibel said.

Hattershide is a worldclass woodsplitter in his own right. Hattershide’s personal best in the 90-foot speed climb in Hayward, Wisconsin, where the championships are held, is less than a second off of the world record. His time of 19.5 seconds would have won the title this year, if he had competed.

“I’d like to break the world record. I don’t know if that’s possible, but that’s what I’m really aiming for,” said Hattershide.

Hattershide annihilated challenger Marvin Weeks on Wednesday night. Hattershide held a small lead up to the top and stumbled, leaving the two neck and neck, 90 feet above the ground. Hattershide then descended into a freefall, grazing the spikes on his feet against the log just a handful of times before making a loud thud on the pad underneath. Weeks was still halfway up the pole.

Hattershide and Waibel arrived just days ago, shouting yo-ho’s and pinning the trigger to their souped-up chainsaws and competing in contests with no winner, only to hear the roar of the crowd. Hattershide was once Waibel’s apprentice, but now challenges him in multiple events.

“The first thing he taught me was not to be so stupid and to not take any big risk, because you know you always have tomorrow,” Hattershide said. “Sometimes you have to go for it. If you don’t go for it, you’re not going to get it.”

There is no LeBron James of timbersports. Competitors almost always have primary occupations. Hattershide is currently studying for an IT degree. He takes solace in that he will still be able to climb poles, his best event, but says that he will miss it. Waibel does not climb anymore. He has one titanium hip, and the other will be titanium after an operation in September.

“Things wear out, knees, ankles. All the tools we’re using out here are made to cut wood and we are softer than that,” said Waibel.

Waibel quickly points out the index fingers on Hattershide, both bearing large scars. One is thick and rough, the other is thin and barely noticable. He describes the difference in sustaining a chainsaw cut, which digs, versus a cross cut saw.

“The cross cut saw is a really clean cut. See how much cleaner that is?” Hattershide said.

So what draws these elite athletes, who struggle to make a living doing what they love anyway, all the way to Alaska to compete for free? The shoe company New Balance once posed the question on an advertisement: For love or money? If these lumberjacks aren’t raking in the profits, it must be for the love.

“The crowds are the best logging sports fans anywhere. I say it at our show and I feel like people are sick of me saying it, but it’s true! People kill to get on this,” Scheer said.

Rare are the opportunities to use a cross cut saw, a chain saw, a spring board, and climb a 90-foot pole professionally. Waibel considers himself lucky, saying that he thinks most people would like to be able to do what he does for free. Rarer are the opportunities to showcase these unique skillsets of a bygone age to packed stands and deafening Yo-Ho’s!

The girl who is supposedly stolen from one lumberjack to the next has never been seen, even though she is supposedly sipping on ‘lemonade’ with lumberjacks every year. The ‘rabbit’ found on the road is still ‘tired’ each year. The different sets of stands still choose the lumberjack they cheer for and jeer the others. Scheer said that she sees fairgoers at the grocery store or the chain saw shop who claim they could perform her entire show word for word. The people at the Alaska State Fair may not be able to tell the difference between a greenhorn and a veteran logsawyer, but they scream at the top of their lungs like they are witnessing logging royalty every year. This keeps the lumberjacks willing to put their limbs and digits on the line.

“When you hear Marv do the chair carve, he’s funny every time, and it’s because he’s having a good time too. Marvin’s retired. This is the only thing he does all summer. He just comes here and he can’t give it up,” Waibel said.

The only change in the last decade seems to have been the pool of lumberjacks Scheer is willing to draw from. Scheer brought in a couple of Alaska State Fair ringers, Hobo Jim and Nick Hanson, the Eskimo Ninja Warrior, for cameos. Hobo Jim was a logger in a past life, and can still hit a bullseye with remarkable consistency. Hanson’s lightning quick feet make for an entertaining competition against Hattershide on the log roll, when the loser gets wet. Hanson, of course, brings his own antics, backflipping off a log floating in water and mimicking dub dances from Fortnite. Each received their due praise, but the fans know what they came to see. World-class lumberjacks are offered the unique opportunity to showcase their skills with little to no consequence.

“The guys that do it, do it because they love it,” said Hattershide. “Just cheering us on is really supporting my love for the sport. It’s supporting me being able to come up here and do this, and it’s a big drive personally for me to keep doing it so that one day I can be a world champion.”