Forestry Club
Since 1906, the Forestry Club has been a place for connecting students who love the woods! Our activities include the College of Forestry Logging Sports team, maple syprup production, trail building, volunteering, guest speakers, field trips, game nights, bonfires, and much more. We are always open to new members of all majors!
Club Information
Oliva Cooper, (Interim) President
Paul McNulty, Vice-President
Miranda Coy, Secretary
Mason Dunn, Treasurer
Alex Seymore, Council Representative
Elizabeth Huxtable & Alex Seymour, Public Relations
Norah Steed, Apparel Chair
Brett Morrisette, Faculty Advisors
LOGGING SPORTS & WOODCUTS CLUB (DSO)
Angus Nicholson, Captain
Kaleb Eakins, Assistant Captain
Connor Hanson, Woodcut Chair
Matthew Kaltenbach, Assistant Woodcut Chair
John Orm, Safety & Equipment
Fall Term General Meetings (2024)
Times & locations TBD
Woodcuts
Woodcuts & Logging Sports Practice dates/times TBA
Check out the Woodcuts Facebook Page!
All practices are held in the logging sports arena at Peavy Arboretum. Carpool is available!
The Logging Sports Team is open to all OSU students. Twice a year the team sponsors intramural meets which are held near Peavy Arboretum. These meets, which are held in the fall and spring, are designed to allow OSU students who are interested in becoming involved with the team to experience as many different events as possible. The team travels to competitions in the Western U.S., including Humboldt State University, and the University of Idaho, Moscow. Additionally, members of the team compete in meets sanctioned by the American Lumberjack Association throughout the U.S. and some have traveled to Canada. Each year the Association of Western Forestry Clubs selects a member school to host the annual Conclave which consists in part of the Western Collegiate Logging Sports Championship.
Events include:
- Axe Throw: Similar to throwing darts but on a larger scale. The contestant stands twenty feet from a target of four inch thick, concentric rings with point values starting at five (bull's eye) and diminishing by one as you move out. The contestant throws three times, adding the score from each throw to achieve his final score.
- Birling: Known to most as the "log roll", this event matches two individuals on a floating log. Contestants attempt to dislodge their opponent by rolling the log with their feet. The best out of three wins. Sometimes a costume competition in incorporated into this event for humor.
- Buck Sawing: Reminiscent of the days before chain saws, the object of this event is to cut through a log in the shortest time with a peg-and-raker cross cut saw. Contestants compete individually (single buck), in same sex pairs (double buck) or as mixed teams (Jack-n-Jill buck).
- Caber Toss: Reminiscent of the traditional Scottish log throw the AWFC caber toss uses a somewhat smaller caber, yet it is still a feat to witness. 9-foot cabers are thrown by guys while 6-foot cabers are thrown by women, and yes the women throw too! Scoring for the caber is determined by how far the caber is thrown from the throw line to the end that the thrower held. This means if the caber doesn't flip end-over-end the reduction in scoring is massive! Typically 3 throws are done for a score.
- Choker Race: The choker race is a feat of speed, cardio and control. A choker is a piece of equipment used in logging and is tied around logs to drag them up hills using a skyline. Typically done in an obstacle course-style, choker race competitiors start with their choker set around a log. When given the go, they loose their choker, taking it with them through the course and returning to the original log to set it once more. This may sound simple, but like anything in logging sports, it isn't. The obstacles vary from place to place but can include: log stacks, elevated log walks, horseshoes, pole walking and more. If a competitor loses his/her balance in the middle they have to return to the beginning of that segment.
- Chopping: Chopping events can require the log to be held in the horizontal or vertical direction and can be scored for time (speed chop) or the number of blade contacts (hard hit). Successful competitors have an understanding of block layout and an accurate swing.
- Limber Pole: This water event consists of a long, thin tree suspended over some body of water. Lines are painted in two foot increments in order to score a competitor's distance per run. The object of this event it to get as far out on the log as possible before it shakes you off. This can be one of the more amusing events to spectate, especially when the water is ice cold. Sometimes a costume competition is incorporated into this event.
- Technical Events: In addition to contest of physical skill, the AWFC offers four technical events to test competitors. These are dendrology (plant identification), wood identification, cruising, and a traverse course. The rules for these coed events vary from site to site.
- Tree Climb: Also called pole climb, the object of this event is to climb a tree/pole to a predetermined height (50 feet for men/30 feet for women). The race is one way and climbers must make a controlled descent. Some climbers make the 50 foot mark in less than 9 seconds! Contestants wear climbing spikes, waist belt and lifeline.
For more information, please contact:
Angus Nicholson, Captain or Kaleb Eakins, Assistant Captain
Thank you for your interest and support of the OSU Forestry Club!
Firewood sales through the woodcut program are the primary means of income for the Forestry Club. Members, led by the woodcut chairs, contribute by bucking, splitting, sorting, stacking, and delivering firewood. Club members who donate of their time to woodcuts can participate in the annual club trip free of charge. Firewood produced by woodcuts is available for purchase by the general public.
For more information please contact Connor Hanson, Woodcut Chair
Also, check out the Woodcuts Facebook Page!
History Of The Forestry Club At Oregon State College
By H. I. Nettleton
1960
A four-year course in forestry was first offered at Oregon State College in the fall of 1906 within the Department of Botany and Forestry under the direction of the School of Agriculture.
Scarcely two months after the fall term started, Professor E. R. Lake met one evening in his home with five forestry students, C. C. Gate, L. H. Stone, B. B. Totten, H. L. Currin and A. B. Mitchell. The purpose of the meeting was to establish a Forestry Club. The date was November 16, 1906.
Every forestry student was considered a member of the club. Meetings were held bi-monthly and on December 21, 1906, the Club's first Constitution was adopted.
Early meeting were held in Professor Lake's home, in the Agriculture Building and in what was then Avery Woodlot, now Avery Park. The open park meetings were usually bonfire affairs. Access to the park was by "Shanks' Mare", down the Southern Pacific railroad tracks, carrying refreshments in packsacks.
On December 6, 1907, Jack Pernot, who later lost his life on the Ochoco National Forest, moved that girls not be admitted to the club. Harvey Lickel counter-moved that Pernot's motion be laud on the table. So far as the records show, the motion is still there. On two occasions no meetings were held because the Professor forgot to bring his office keys!
On December 16, 1908, T. J. Starker moved that the Club design and adopt an official Forester's pin, and within the next four years an official pin and a pipe were adopted by its members, both involving a pine cone design. On that same date the first recorded mention was made of the need of encouraging indifferent members to attend Club meetings.
On April 6, 1910, when "T. J.", then better know as "Peach-fuzz", was Club president, a motion was made and passed requiring any member absent from a meeting to write a synopsis on some bulletin.
On April 11, 1912, James Evenden, later one of the famous "Iron Men" who contributed to mighty Michigan's upset defeat in football in 1915, moved that: "If any member of the Club is absent or very tardy and unable to give an acceptable excuse, a tax should be levied on such person." An amendment was added by Lynn Cronemiller, later to become Oregon's State Forester, "that the tax should be 'two bits' and, in case of 'fussing' - 'four "bits!'".
At the beginning of the second semester in February, 1910, George W. Peavy was appointed Professor of Forestry and head of the newly independent Department of Forestry. There were seventeen students at that time, all members, in more or less good standing, of the Forestry Club. Four of them, Harold D. Gill, Jack F. Pernot, Thurman J. Starker and Sinclair A. Wilson constituted the first graduating class in June, 1910.
On July 19, 1913, the Department of Forestry became the School of Forestry, and in the spring of 1916 the Forestry Club met and officially broke ground for a new Forestry Building which was first occupied the following fall.
Classes and Club neetings, up to that time, had been held on the third or 'heaventh' floor of the then Science Building, more familiarly known as the "chem-shack."
When the United States entered World War I in the spring of 1917, a Club meeting was held around a bonfire in Avery Woodlot. Almost half of the forestry student body (and Forestry Club) (49.5%) voted to enter the Armed Forces. Seniors were guaranteed their diplomas in absentia. Three gave their lives: Earl B. Blacken, Owen Johnson and Richard K. Wilmot. In the fall of 1924 the Forestry Club planted and dedicated three scarlet oaks at the southeast corner of the Forestry Building to the memory of these three men.
Shortly after the end of World War I, in the spring of 1920, the Club published its first annual, called the "Forest Club Annual." Later, in the fall of 1920, the Club initiated a contest to find a more appropriate name for its publication. Roger D. Healy, then a junior in forestry, suggested "The Annual Cruise" and that name was adopted.
Contents of the Annuals throughout the years reflect the changes in forestry methods, in clothing worn by foresters and in equipment used in logging. The first Annuals devoted much space to railroad logging, soon to be followed by truck logging, and the advertising space in the first editions listed Lidgerwood High Spar Skidders, Simonds cross-cut saws, Bergman's logging boots and Patrick Mackinaws.
During those earlier days, from 1913 to 1927, there were only two major courses of study offered: General Foresters and Logging Engineering. A deep rivalry developed between the students taking the two courses, intensified by the general feeling within the industry and outside the 'Walls of Learning' that foresters and loggers were entirely different breeds of cats and that "never the twain should meet" - at least amicably!
Students specializing in General Forestry looked down upon students specializing in Logging Engineering as a lower form of 'homo sapiens', given to profanity and snoose chewing and entirely lacking in any appreciation of trees in any form except logs. The "Loggers" took a keen delight in referring to the "Foresters" as a bunch of panty-waist idealists who were not "men enough to chew snoose without getting 'green around the gills'."
Feeling between the factions gradually become so intense that the Logger threatened to withdraw from the Forestry Club and start a Loggers Club of their own. About this time, in 1920, Harry R. Patterson arrived to head Logging Engineering. With his aid and some strong talk by Dean Peavy to both factions in a memorable Club meeting, the widening breach was healed and civil war averted.
One factor which contributed to the reunion of the foresters and loggers was the necessity of presenting a united front against their arch rivals, the lowly "muckers" from the School of Mines, then existing on the campus. The annual football game between selected representatives of the Forestry Club and the Miners Club, usually played in ankle deep mud, was an outstanding fall athletic event, vociferously backed by staff and club members of each school. Nothing was barred except pistols and knives and, if a miner or a forester failed to show for classes the day after this bloody affair, it was assumed that the corpus delicti was buried in the mud and might as well be left there until spring! The foresters, incidentally, won more than their share of the games.
In those earlier days, from 1910 to 1924, inclusive, the entire student body of the School moved off the campus for spring field trips. The first trip occurred in the spring of 1910 and included seven foresters: Harold D. Gill, Jack F. Pernot, Thurman J. Starker, Sinclair A. Wilson, Harold H. Barber, Howard J. Eberly, and Adolf Nelsson. These students, unaccompanied by a staff member, journeyed to the camps of the Columbia Timber Company above Goble, Oregon. They worked thier field problems from an outline.
It is presumed that the written reports of these "independent" studies were most carefully scanned by Professor Peavy upon the return to the campus of the "Saltation Seven" (meaning they made their way over the hills along the Columbia River by a series of leaps--from which may have developed the term long since applied to all Oregon State forestry students--Fernhoppers).
The next recorded all-school field trip in may of 1920 was a memorable one. The school owned no transport facilities at that time, so army trucks from the Military Department moved some fifty-odd (and some of them were) foresters to the mouth of Rock Creek Canyon near the east base of Mary's Peak. From there an escort wagon, drawnby two big army mules, moved the tentage and food supplies for a six day cruise to the forks of Rock Creek where "Hobo Camp" was established. So ended the first day--on a Saturday--at that.
The next day, Sunday, was spent--can you guess it--on last minute instructions on how to cruise timber and on crew organization--a foresters' "Sunday School." In the next six days a twenty percent strip cruise was made, covering four sections of timber in what is now the Corvallis watershed. Four strips were run per forty, each one chain wide. Seven man crews were used with duties as follows: 1. Chain of party, usually a senior student. 2. Topographer, usually a junior student. 3-4. Two cruisers, one on each side of strip center line--juniors. 5. Compassman, usually a sophomore. 6. Head chian and tally-man--freshman student. 7. Rear chainman--freshman student. Control lines were run and staked with elevations every five chains by Patterson's logging engineering crew.
On the last morning of this memorable trip, John W. Allan of the class of '23 posted a sign in front of his tent stating that he had a champion hot-cake eater in his squad who would contest against any man in camp, stakes to be cigars for the entire crew.
Dean Peavy promptly accepted the challenge, stole Allan's sign and re-erected it in front of his own tent. Allan named Gilbert D. Morgan, class of '23, as his man. Peavy named Sam S. Allen, also calss of '23 as his. The contest was to take place that evening, and then Peavy promptly assigned his man to remain in camp that day and cut up and stack a cord of wood as pre-training. Sam wasn't too much good out on the line, anyway, weighting around 250 pounds and none of that lean meat.
That evening a long trench fire was built and allowed to burn down to a fiery bed of hot coals. Four fry-pans of equal dinner plate size and an official batter ladle were selected, and a judge was named to preside over the baking of the hot-cakes to assure that each cake was edible and not a “raw-dab.” Each contestant selected a second to preside at his table to butter and syrup the hot cakes and two staff members were appointed to keep an official tally of the number of cakes eaten by each contestant. Practice baking stared at 7:30 P.M. to enable the four official bakers to perfect their techniques. Promptly at 8:00 P.M. each contestant was served his first hot-cake and the race was on, with the camp evenly divided in support of each, and equally vociferous in that support. Thirty minutes and eighteen hot-cakes later, Sam Allen arose from his table on the outside of eleven and Morgan staggered away with only seven beneath his belt. Cigars for the crowd by John Allan.
This same Sam Allan also made a record trip from camp to Buck’s place one evening when smoke showed over the ridge to the southwest shortly after supper time. The Dean promptly called the crew into emergency session and someone asked, with tongue in cheek, if there was any garden hose in camp. Peavy answered with tongue in cheek that there should be some at Buck’s place, three miles down the creek.
Whereupon Sam, all 250 pounds of him, quickly volunteered to go down and make arrangements for Buck to pack the hose into camp. Ed Sweeney hid in the brush below camp and did such a good job of cougar screaming as Sam passed on his return trip that Sam failed to make the turn onto the foot log across Rock Creek and fell, steaming, into the icy waters below.
During the spring of 1917 the seniors of the School of Forestry organized a local honorary forestry fraternity known as Sigma Lambda Epsilon. Due to World War I, nothing further was done until the fall of 1920 when several alumni, headed by Carl Jacoby ’17, initiated Joseph Steele and Harry Nettleton into the local as on-campus members to start negotiating for a local chapter of Xi Sigma Pi, National Honorary Forestry fraternity.
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American Lumberjack Association
Associated Oregon Loggers
Bailey's Logging Supply
Forestry Suppliers, Inc.
Lumberjack World Championships
North American Lumberjack Guide
Oregon Logging Conference
Society of American Foresters