SHE SAW
College women carving out a niche for themselves on woodsmen's teams
DURHAM, N.H. - Christiann Unger is a junior biology major at the University of New Hampshire and an aspiring Miss New Hampshire set to compete for the state pageant title next month. She wears a pink ribbon tied around her long, blond ponytail and dangling earrings under her Red Sox baseball cap.
She is also an enthusiastic member of the Lumberjacks, the coed woodsmen team at the university. Alongside 20 teammates, including six other women, she wields knife-edged saws and axes and competes to chop through blocks of wood faster than anyone else.
They may not look like Paul Bunyan, in beards and red-plaid flannel. But the ranks of college lumberjacks appear to be growing, and their competitions, which air on ESPNU, the college sports network, are attracting a national audience. A leading chainsaw manufacturer, seeking exposure for its products, has poured money into the sport since becoming a sponsor five years ago.
New teams have cropped up recently at the University of Vermont and the University of Connecticut, and more women are picking up axes. At UNH, the 40-ye ar-old team has exploded in size, from three members two years ago, to seven last year, to 21, and now boasts the most women in its history.
This weekend, UNH is hosting 31 woodsmen's teams from 13 colleges, the most in recent memory, at the annual spring meet for the Northeast. Dartmouth, Colby, and Unity colleges, the University of Maine, and Penn State will be among the schools vying for bragging rights - and a $1,000 scholarship from Stihl Inc., the chainsaw and power tool company - in ax throwing, pulp tossing, wood splitting, fire building, log rolling, cross-cutting, and other feats. Many have origins in the early days of the timber industry, when men spent months in remote logging camps and devised the contests for their entertainment.
Students say they like the camaraderie of the teams and the time spent outdoors. Many say the sport's pulp-busting aggressiveness is an antidote for stress.
"I just want to chop something," Unger told her coach last week, as the team prepared for this weekend's competition.
Teams tend to attract forestry majors, but the sport is not just for aspiring woodsmen anymore. At UNH, participants include pre-med, psychology, and civil technology majors.
"Other students usually have never heard of it," said Katie Everts, a pre-med and nutrition major from Rumney. "But when else will I be able to horizontal-chop and get trophies for it?"
About 30 percent of competitors are women, said Roger Phelps, a spokesman for Stihl Inc. Forestry leaders have tried in recent years to change the field's image as a realm of chainsaw-toting macho men.
Last week, days before the spring meet, the Lumberjacks gathered at the UNH sawmill as coach AJ Dupere fine-tuned his competition roster. As dusk fell and tiny mosquitoes hovered over piles of sawdust, Unger and one of her teammates, forestry major Megan Bujnowski, prepared to face off in the horizontal chop. During the event, woodsmen stand atop solid blocks of pine (6-by-6 feet for women and 8-by-8 feet for men), hoist their axes overhead, and hammer them down in a blur of fast, precise chops to try to break through the wood in a matter of seconds.
The two women stepped atop their blocks, their axes poised for action, their feet and legs sheathed in metal shin guards that looked like the lower part of a knight's suit of armor.
Dupere counted down and they sprang into action, grunting and straining as they swung their axes, aiming for a carefully mapped target of attack they had sketched onto the blocks before they started.
At the same moment, both reached the halfway point and turned to hammer at the block from the other side. Their teammates, gathered close around them, yelled encouragement: "Follow your lines!" and "Breathe! Breathe! Don't quit!"
Bujnowski's block broke in two and fell apart as she jumped to the ground in triumph. Unger paused, ax above her head, and looked ready to quit, but cheered on by her teammates, she chopped on until she finished.
"I love the adrenaline. I love chainsawing," Bujnowski said in an interview. "I love cutting down trees. It's a weird hobby, I guess."
This winter, for fun, she helped a friend use a team of oxen to pull trees out of the woods.
Even though more students are showing interest in woodsmen's competitions, fewer students are enrolling in forestry programs. Nationwide, the average enrollment per program has dropped from 106 to 88 since 2002, while the average number of graduates per program fell from 27.4 to 17.5, according to the Society of American Foresters.
Kae Crowley, a University of Vermont junior, helped revive the woodsmen's team at UVM two years ago, after another student discovered a long-forgotten 20-year-old cache of saws and axes and a list of contest rules. Intrigued by the idea of woodsmanship, but lacking basic skills, a half-dozen students ferried across Lake Champlain to their first college meet, without a coach and without ever having practiced.
"We showed up and the other teams were really supportive, and they coached us though it," said Crowley, a forestry major from Burlington, Conn. "I had just finished my Division 1 cross country season, where everyone wanted to beat you, and here everyone wanted to be nice."
They may be nice, but their sport is tough as nails. One event is known as the "cross cut to death." One of their tools, a 6-foot buck saw, was known by loggers as a "misery whip." Some competitors wear chain-mail socks to protect their toes from flying axes.
The student lumberjacks shrug off the danger.
Even after coming in second at practice, Unger, the Miss New Hampshire contender, glowed with satisfaction.
"This is my passion," she said. "I tried to do sawing or chopping for my talent at the pageant."
Pageant officials said no, so Unger will tap dance instead.
Jenna Russell can be reached at jrussell@globe.com.
