University Students Celebrate Logging History

Students from 10 colleges across Quebec, Ontario, the Maritimes and New England chopped wood and built fires to boil water, threw axes, sawed logs and climbed poles at the 48th annual Intercollegiate Woodsmen Competition which took place at McGill University’s MacDonald campus in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue last Sunday.

Men and women competed in the same events, although some women chose to compete in men’s teams that have tougher standards. The teams from New Brunswick took first place in the men’s events, followed by the teams from McGill and Nova Scotia Agricultural College in second and third places respectively. Nova Scotia took first place in the women’s events, with McGill scoring second place again, and Sir Sanford Fleming College located near Peterborough, Ontario came in third.

The students are carrying on traditional activities loggers engaged in when they had free time as a way to celebrate logging history.