The town of Kapuskasing will be celebrating the tenth anniversary of their Lumberjack Heritage festival this July 24 - 26 in Riverside Park. In commemoration of ten years of the festival, organizers have waived the admission fee for all daytime events, the only thing that visitors will have to pay to see will be the Friday night Kim Mitchell concert and Blue Rodeo on Saturday night.
As Chantal Rody, Kapuskasing’s community development officer and festival coordinator, explains the free admission is meant to give everyone an opportunity to experience and take part in the tenth anniversary activities.
"We are also bringing back the heavy horse pull for the tenth anniversary, which has been away from the festival for three or four years now and has traditionally been a very well attended event" Rody said. "Also in celebration of the tenth anniversary we are having a commemorative ceremony which will honour the past, present and future of the forestry industry."
Also new to the festival this year is The Lumberjack Company show in which the audience is encouraged to participate in a performance which mixes humour with a display of lumberjack skills and training.
Rody says that the professional and amateur lumberjack skills competitions will be returning again this year with professional lumberjack competitors from throughout Ontario, northern Quebec and the northern United States expected to attend.
"We have a few that have registered already, mostly local and regional teams and we are open for registration all the way up to the week of the lumberjack festival" Rody said.
Professional competitors will demonstrate their skills in a variety of events including the underhand chop, standing block chop, springboard chop, single and two-man cross cut saw competitions, Swede saw, axe throw, pole climb, chainsaw bucking, open modified chainsaw and the obstacle pole competition.
Among the amateur events, log rolling – which is held on the river by the festival grounds – is traditionally one of the biggest crowd pleasers. Other amateur events include: axe throw, water boil, Swede saw, cross-cut saw, fire wood toss, pulp pits, chainsaw bucking and log rolling.
Rody said most of the teams that enter the amateur competition are made up of regional residents, many of whom work in the forest industry.
Many of skills used in the lumberjack competition are ones that would have been relied upon in the early days of forestry, said Rody, adding that amidst the fun and games, there’s an educational component.
"It enlightens the younger generation about how it was working in the bush during the lumberjack era," she said. "It also refreshes or reminds the elderly how times have changed with the evolution of the forest industry."
Some of the other events at this years festival are the western speed challenge in which competitors put their horsemanship to the test, a motorcycle show, lumberjack car show, arm wrestling competitions and forestry equipment displays. The festival also boasts a reconstructed lumberjack camp which harkens back to the early 1920’s, when as an incentive to new settlers in Northern Ontario, landowners were entitled to cut 105 chords of pulp wood from the Crown forests.
Rody says the Kapuskasing Economic Development Team launched the lumberjack festival in 1999 with two goals in mind.
"It boosts economic activity in Kapuskasing," she said. "It also celebrates our heritage and culture which is our main purpose."◊