Interview by Mercedes Arnold

All photos provided courtesy of Alissa Wetherbee.

Maine Vibes Magazine: Do you mind introducing yourself and talking about your business?

Alissa Wetherbee: Yeah, absolutely. I am the owner of Axe Women Loggers of Maine. It's an all-girl lumberjack show, all the ladies on the team are World Record holders, World Champions, Collegiate Champions, and the up-and-comers in the sports, as well as the veterans of the sport that have been competing for over 30 years. We have a wide range of ladies but they're all the best of the best and amazing role models. We have law enforcement officers, teachers, veterinarians & scientists, on our team who all love timbersports and are amazing competitors. 

I got started in the sport because I grew up here in Maine, my family didn't have a furnace until I was 7 or 8 years old, they heated strictly with wood. When my sisters and I would get home from school, our chore was to carry wood in and fill the wood box. I grew up helping my dad fill the woodshed with firewood, and then when I got older I was able to help split it. When I was a teenager, he taught me how to safely run the chainsaw and I worked with him; we cut firewood & pulpwood. I got into it organically because I was doing it. Growing up and watching the Wide World of Sports, occasionally they would show a little bit of the lumberjack sports and log rolling. It was cool. When I was 20 I went to my first competition, there were very few women's competitions. Women could compete, but we were competing against the men. I definitely won my share of events with chainsaws or axe throwing, but at the end of the day when it came down to chopping events, it was tougher for me to place beside men. To watch the sport evolve over the years, it's been amazing to see; there are more women's competitions now and a women's day at the World Championships so that's really great to see.

MVM: Yeah, that is really cool. I know you've accomplished a bunch of firsts in the sport, and like you said have watched the sport evolve. You've won championships and participated in the first-ever women's championships for your sport. So you're known as what's called an IronJill. Can you explain what the title means and what it means to you to be an IronJill?

AW: An IronJill comes from the Ironman races, where they're competing in multiple events;  and to be an Ironman is to be the best of the best in the all-around competition. In timber sports, they have IronJack competitions and you have to be a really strong competitor in chopping events, as well as log rolling events and sawing events. It’s a whole wide range to cover all of your different bases of timbersports competitions. A lot of people pick one or two things and they're really good at it and that's what they stick with, which is great. We have several ladies on the team; they are amazing log rollers, and they are good axe throwers, but they might not have any interest in learning how to chop, or learning how to run the big chainsaws. I love that I’m an IronJill, I love that I can pick up an axe and be good with it or pick up a saw and be proficient with that, or that I can step off the dock and roll on a log.

“At the end of the day, when there are 10 of us out in front of the grandstands chopping at a championship it's one of those sports, when the girl beside you finishes her log, she's going to stand there and cheer the girl next to her on.”

MVM: Yeah, that's amazing. Are there certain criteria? Do you have to do all three of the timber sports to be an IronJill?

AW: It comes down to whoever is hosting the competition, and what they're going to demand for your events. I think ESPN was putting on competitions back in the early 90’s. They were having a few women compete, a lot of it was log rolling, chopping, and crosscut sawing. I don't think I've actually seen an IronJill type of competition for a few years now. Some athletes are either a chopper or a log roller.; if you can do both, that's even better.

MVM: I remember watching ESPN and the X Games when I was young and seeing all the men compete. When I started seeing the women on television, I thought it was so cool. Representation matters and for it to keep growing in popularity is amazing.

AW: Exactly, yeah.

MVM: Which is super exciting, it looks so fun and so cool, and it's so badass.

AW: It is such a fun sport and yeah, it’s amazing to watch it grow.

MVM: How do you think sponsorship is going to change in the future as it grows in popularity?

AW:  That’s a good question. It’s interesting to see the different sponsors that have come in and out of it. There’s Carhartt, which was always a big sponsor, and then it switched. Duluth is one of the big sponsors and Ram trucks. John Deere has always been a big sponsor. There have already been big-name sponsors. It comes down to who's going to sponsor each individual competition.

MVM: How does it feel to compete in the first-ever US timbersports Women's Division Championship?

AW: I was so proud. We've been trying to get it for years in the US. There was always the men's competition every year, the  STIHL TimberSports series. Canada had a women's division for a number of years and we had always pushed for it down here. Once we found out it was going to happen we were thrilled. I was there for the first one, it was definitely great to see that happen in the US.

MVM: That’s incredible. How many women were competing back in 2017?

AW: I believe they took the top 30 out of everyone who entered.

MVM: Do you get to know the community of women in the sport?

AW: You do get to know everyone, even though it's growing, it's still a pretty small community of us. You will know just about everyone at any competition you go to, you’ve competed against her before, or you might sometimes just follow each other on social media. I think timber sports is so interesting because it’s super competitive but at the end of the day, when there are 10 of us out in front of the grandstands chopping at a championship it's one of those sports, when the girl beside you finishes her log, she's going to stand there and cheer the girl next to her on, and that's awesome. If that girl might not have someone out there coaching her and one of the ladies sees something, she’s telling her competitor to hit your bottom wood or hit your top wood or just drive it off. You're going to stand there, and you're going to cheer for the girl beside you. There's a lot of camaraderie, even though no one wants to lose. I've been beside someone on a track and we've been chopping and I finished my log, and she took a hit and snapped the handle of her axe. I didn’t think twice, I ran over with my axe and handed it to her and she took it and finished her log. 

MVM: Wow, that's awesome. 

AW: I don't think you see that in every sport but it's great when you do. I would say it gets competitive, but there is amazing camaraderie between the ladies as well.

“I spent a year trying to stay on the log for an hour or two at a time”

MVM: That must be such a good feeling to know that you're supported, have that community of women, and be a small group but know that it's growing and be still be able to support each other like that. 

AW: Yeah, absolutely. 

MVM: You were the first person to log roll across the Mississippi River, which is insane, so amazing! Can you talk about that experience? How long did it take you? What did you do to prepare?

AW:  The whole thing happened because we had been log rolling on a western red cedar log, that was kind of the standard in log rolling. It was a 600-pound log, we carried it all over the country with us, it would usually require a forklift to take it out of our trailer and put it into the pool. If someone wanted us to roll in a lake, or any body of water that didn't have a road leading to it, it was nearly impossible. , Another competitor, a world champion boom runner and log roller, Abby Hoeshler Delaney; she and her mom, Judy Scheer Hoeschler, designed this new log, it's called a key log. KeyLog

It’s a synthetic log and it's hollow and only weighs 65 pounds, and has these boat plugs on each end. It’s extremely portable and you can take it anywhere. You get to your body of water and unplug the boat plugs and the log fills with water and gets to five or 600 pounds. Because of the baffle system that’s in it, it rolls just like a wooden log. She has really revolutionized competitive log rolling. For years we were using the wooden log and then I decided I wanted to try one of these KeyLogs that I'd heard so much about. We were doing a show in Nebraska and on our way out we stopped in Minneapolis to see Abby and we bought one of her logs. We took it out to Nebraska and we did the show with it and we all loved it. We had noticed playing around with it that with the fins on the log you can control it and take it from one side of the pool to the other side, it was really fun. ]

When we were driving back east, my husband and I stopped in LeClaire, Iowa for lunch. 

We ended up at a place called the Riverview Roadhouse, it's this little bar-restaurant overlooking the Mississippi River. We were sitting there eating lunch, and the locals play some game where a train goes by and everyone runs to the window to look to see the number on the back of the train that will match the number on the back of their barstool. If it matches, you win a shot. The train goes by, everyone runs to the window, and Mike and I are sitting there eating our lunch and we're like, what is going on? They start looking at the back of everyone's stool. And it turns out, Mike had won the shots. So after a beer and some shots, Mike turns to me and asks, “Do you think you can log roll across that?”

I said yeah! But I didn't do it that day. That conversation turned into a year of planning and finding out what we needed for permitting and who we needed to talk to, to make sure everything was done safely. Mike worked really closely with the Army Corps of Engineers, DNR and Coast Guard, and all of the barge companies. I trained super hard and I had no idea how long it would take. We would throw the log in the ocean here in May before our season started off. I’d do an hour or 2 of rolling and Mike would be floating around out there in a wetsuit making sure everything was okay.

MVM: Did you wear a wetsuit while training and during the roll?

AW: I wore a life jacket and a wet suit. I spent a year trying to stay on the log for an hour or two at a time and getting onto the log from water over my head in case I fell off in the middle of the river, you know, it's a whole other thing to consider; swimming up and hanging over the log and then you have to straddle the log like a horse and pop up and start running, all while wearing a life jacket. When it came time to do it, everyone was so helpful. The Coast Guard said alright, we'll do our training exercises on this part of the river that day. So we'll be there if you guys need anything. And we had a news boat and they brought a drone and they bought a rescue boat, The barge companies,  they definitely couldn't shut down the river. But they called us the night before and said alright, at eight o'clock tomorrow morning, you have an hour-long window. So we're like, okay, we're doing eight o'clock tomorrow morning. Right before I stepped off the dock in Port Byron areporter came and stuck a microphone in my face, I was shaking and I'm tying my shoes and I'm thinking I'm about to possibly make a mistake. The river was at crazy flood stages and I was about to step off and he sticks the microphone in my face and says how long is it going to take you? I had no idea, maybe 30 minutes. They ended up filming it live and it ended up taking 29 minutes and a couple of seconds.

MVM: Wow, that’s wild! How wide was the section of the river that you did? 

AW: It was about three-quarters of a mile. With current, we ended up going downstream a bit too. Being the Mississippi, it had a crazy current and it was at flood stages and the water was terrifying. I couldn't see anything in it, it was soupy brown water. I was terrified that I was going to fall off and then be too panicked to get back on. 

MVM: What was going through your mind as you were log rolling across the Mississippi?

AW: The key to log rolling and keeping your balance is to always watch the opposite end of the log. This way you know when the log is rolling forward or backward. I was definitely always trying to keep it rolling in one direction, but you're fighting the current, and you're trying to balance it, too. It's definitely a lot of back and forth. I couldn't really see where I was, I would have fallen if I had been looking around at anything. My husband and my dad were in a canoe next to me and we had a 20-foot rope tethered between the end of the log and the canoe. We had to do this because you can go backward and forwards on the log, but you can't really steer your direction. Otherwise, if we didn't have the rope to keep me angled straight across, I would have done cartwheels down the river. I had to power the log across but they could get me back facing the right way. There was a lot of yelling back and forth between them in the canoe. At one point, there were these crazy loud whistles because there are train tracks that go up and down the river, but it also sounds exactly like the barge horns. The whistles just started going off behind me and it would get closer and I'm yelling to Mike, is that a train or a barge? It was a train! 

MVM: That sounds a little terrifying, ha!

AW: I had to ask them where we were, as they were my guides because I couldn't really take my focus off the end of the log.

MVM: Wow, that's some teamwork right there. That's awesome. It’s great that your dad was there.

AW: Yeah, my dad flew out the day before. He used to help guide canoe trips on the Allagash, so that helped. Mike could put more of his attention on me having my dad there too, rather than if he was alone in a boat going across.

MVM: Thank you so much for sharing that story! Congratulations too! Has anyone done the log roll since you did it? 

AW: I don't believe so. 

MVM: Wow. That's pretty awesome. How important is the sport to you? What does it mean to you? 

AW: It’s really important, I think it's really empowering for women and the camaraderie that they have. It shows that there's a sport for everyone out there. 

MVM: Do you train during the winter, too?

AW: We usually have a target set up in our backyard. I'm lucky because my husband and I  cut trees for our other jobs too, we'll help people with clearing trails, habitat restoration, storm cleanup, etc. We're always cutting wood and hauling wood. 

MVM: Are most of the championships during the summer?

AW: Usually June until September

MVM: Can you talk about your company's Pathfinders program? How does someone get involved and become a Pathfinder?

AW:   We’ve met so many women that might be at a competition or a show and wanted to try it out but didn’t have the background. Being a Pathfinder with us gives them the opportunity to axe throw or learn to logroll or run a chainsaw. I'm happy to take them onto our team, they'll travel with us and do different events with us. When they feel ready for a competition, they’ll be able to because they’ve had some good training with us.  We also want them to be great role models. With a lot of them, it just happens that they're leaders in their field, whatever they are doing for their profession. That's what led us to the Pathfinder name because they're Pathfinders in their careers and they're also Pathfinders in the sport.

MVM: That’s really cool. You created an additional opportunity for these women and you yourself are a pathfinder, paving the way for these other women to enter the sport and learn from you. Where can we find the Axewomen next?

AW: On June 24 - 26 we're going to be in Litchfield at the Little Maine Market Festival and from there we take off across the country. We go to Pennsylvania, and then we're spending a month in Colorado, and then we're out in Idaho, and then back to New Hampshire & Vermont then out to Nebraska, and down to West Virginia. At that point, it's October and we're ready to come home and sit by the fireplace.

MVM: You’re everywhere! 

AW: Mike, and I, we're lucky because we get to drive everywhere together and our dog Pete comes with us.

MVM: What a great summer! Do you want to give a shout-out to your dog?

AW:  I do. He is a Plott Hound and he is the most amazing little guy ever.

MVM: He looks so cute. He's the team mascot, right? Is he able to stay on the log with you?

AW: If I am holding the log, he will do it. I don't think he's as excited as I am about logrolling. He lives the life of luxury. We bring him out for a few minutes in the middle of each show and talk about the importance of adopting rather than shopping for a pet. He came from an amazing rescue group. We let people know that there are amazing shelters and give tips on how to help out their local shelter. We also have these certificates with his picture and his story. We made a stamp of his actual paw print, and at the end of a show, if people want to come up and take pictures and if they donate $5 we use his paw print stamp, and he “stamps” all of these certificates you can get a Peter Plott Hound Paw-to-graphed certificate. At the end of the season, we donate all of that money to the shelter that he came from.

MVM: That’s so great! What shelter did he come from?

AW: It is New England Lab Rescue in Limerick. They do amazing work.

MVM: Thank you so much for sharing with me. I'm so happy to talk with you! 

Links to Alissa’s shout-outs:

New England Lab Rescue, Heather Labbe Smith

Hilltop Boilers, Jennifer Bryant 

Wendy Farrand - Forestry and Sustainable Logging & Forestry

VAST at Pineland Farms -  Kristina Sabasteanski

Thank you to Alissa Wetherbee for sharing your incredible journey, the world of timbersports, and how women are kicking AXE and taking names in the sport, with Maine Vibes Magazine. Check out the Axe Women website below for more information on where to find them next! Axe Women also launched a new brand of hot sauces, Axe-Kickin Hot Sauce, see below for more details.

Web: www.axewomen.com

Web: www.axekickinsauce.com

Web: www.woodsandwarriors.com

Instagram: @axewomen

Facebook: Axe Women