Blue View - The Surprising Artistry of Chainsaw Carving

When Marcie mentioned that we’d be passing through Chetwynd, home of the Annual International Chainsaw Carving Championship, I was less than excited. I don’t know how many roadside markets and craft shows we’ve seen that featured chainsaw carvings of bears, chairs, and maybe an eagle or two. Some were pretty rough, some were quite good, but really, after you’ve seen a few dozen variations of carved black bears, they’re not that interesting anymore. We hadn’t even gotten to the city limits, however, before I realized that the carvings in Chetwynd were a whole lot better than anything I’d ever imagined.

The idea for the competition began when Chetwynd wanted to do something to celebrate Rendezvous’92, the 50th anniversary of the construction of the Alaska highway. It was hoped that many of the soldiers and civilians that were involved in building the highway would be able to attend the rendezvous and share their stories. Several of the towns that the highway passed through were planning special events. The town of Chetwynd decided to commission the carving of three bears to adorn their “Welcome to Chetwynd” sign, and to host a chainsaw carving contest.

The chainsaw competition was held a few more times over the following years, but it wasn’t until 2005 that it became an annual event. In 2005, there were seven competitors, all from British Columbia and the U.S. That number grew to twelve in 2006, and has remained the same each year since, with four invited from Canada, four from the U.S., and four from other countries. To be invited, a carver must submit photos of past work and have finished in the top three of other qualifying competitions. Contestants have come from as far away as  Australia, Japan, and Slovakia.

Each carver is provided with a 40-50 inch diameter by 8 foot tall western red cedar log, and given 32 hours to complete their sculpture. The competition starts at 8:00 am on a Thursday and continues until 1:00 pm the following Sunday. Following the main event, and while the judging is taking place, the carvers have two hours to complete a quick sculpture. These quick carvings are auctioned off to the public. In addition to having all their expenses paid, the winner receives $5000, second place gets $3000, and third place gets $1000. There is also a People’s Choice Award, voted on by the audience, and a Carver’s Award, for the sculpture deemed best by the carvers themselves.

For the first few years, the competitors were all men, but since then, a number of women have also been invited to compete. Last year, not only were two of the twelve carvers women, but both the first prize and the People’s Choice Award went to Abby Peterson from Kentucky for her sculpture “Larger Than Life”.

The completed sculptures are kept and maintained by the town. Before putting them on display, the Parks Department treats each sculpture with three coats of an exterior polyurethane. They also make any repairs or refinishing needed to the now more than 200 carvings placed around town. The visitors’s center (or centre as it’s spelled in these here parts) provides a map with the location and a brief description of each sculpture. It was cold and blustery the day we were there, but we still wandered around for more than an hour and were able to find 48 of them before the wind and temperature got to be too much for us.

Here are a few of my favorites:

BTW, the carvers aren’t limited to using just an ordinary chainsaw - they can use any tools of their choosing. For example the initial shaping is done with special carving chainsaws:

Much of the shaping is then done with tools like these:

Finally, the detail work is with sanders and Dremel type rotary tools.

Of course, for those really manly projects, there’s something like this:

A final aside here… we’ve gone to the Albuquerque International Balloon Festival twice. Both times we noticed that there was a chainsaw carving competition being held in the far reaches of the festival grounds, but never bothered to take a look. Bad on us! I just discovered that this is the annual Echo Chainsaw Carving Series and Championship, one of the most prestigious carving events in the world, and to which the winner of the Chetwynd competition qualifies for an invitation. If we ever make it to another ABQ balloon festival, we’ll correct this remissness.

Stay tuned next week when I share some really amazing stories about the building of the Alaska Highway…