Under a strong spring sun, wood chips flew and saw dust swirled about as Dartmouth hosted the 63rd annual Woodsmen's Weekend competition this past weekend.
Drawing 27 teams and about 200 competitors, the two-day event featured competitions in various woodsmen's events, including axe throwing, fire building, canoeing, chain throwing, block chopping and crosscut sawing.
The two-day event was split between venues. Friday's competitions took place at the Dartmouth Organic Farm, as many of the events involved canoeing. Saturday saw the competition move to the Green.
A new event this year featured birling, where competitors balance on a log floating in a pool of water.
The birling pool was set up on the Green and held roughly 2,000 gallons of water to float the large log. David Nutt '09 was a standout in the event, finishing second in the men's birling competition.
Other Dartmouth competitors also had strong showings in birling, where both male and female students had the opportunity to show off their talents.
At the same time, the Dartmouth woodsmen were also hard at work running the competition, as they were both competitors and hosts for the duration of the meet.
Men's team captain Luke Mann-O'Halloran '09 praised the Dartmouth squads competing this weekend.
"Everything went off well. Dartmouth did well, and I was very happy with our performance," he said.
Each team entered six competitors, each of whom competed in one singles event, one doubles event and one triples event. Each member of the squad also competed in five whole-team events.
The Dartmouth women's team combined for a third-place finish in the packboard relay, where team members work together to carry weight strapped to a board.
Strong individual finishes went to a number of competitors on the women's squad, with Sarah Parkinson '09 finishing second in the single buck, Courtney Talmadge '09 finishing first in the fly cast and Emily Kyker-Snowman '11 finishing second in the chain throw.
Additionally, Lauren Lesser '10 and Alix Perez Lawrence '10 teamed to finish first in doubles canoeing and third in the fire build.
When the dust had finally settled, the Big Green women sat in fifth place in the overall standings.
For the men's squad, the strongest team event proved to be the packboard relay, in which the Big Green finished first, winning by 0.6 seconds.
Phil Wagner '09 paired up Nutt to finish second in doubles canoeing. Wagner also finished first in the chain throw to score significant points for the Big Green.
Overall, the Big Green men's team finished in sixth place. O'Halloran said he was happy with the result.
"I'm really pleased with Dartmouth's performance," he said. "Sixth place is a strong finish for us, especially since we have had to divert our attention to setting up and running the competition, which cut into our practice time in the run-up to the meet."
Paul Smith's College, located in New York, won the overall competition with a very strong showing in nearly every event. Second place went to Finger Lakes Community College, with the team from the State University of New York Environmental Science and Forestry taking third.
The competition was part of the Dartmouth Outing Club's year-long Centennial celebration.
Normally Dartmouth hosts the competition every three years, but Dartmouth was awarded the competition a year early so that the event would coincide with the year's celebrations.
Several other new features were also included in recognition of the DOC's Centennial. Four Dartmouth alumni teams, two male and two female, competed in two age-based categories. Additionally, the STIHL chainsaw competition included a women's division for the first time, in response to a request by the DOC.
"This was a special woodsmen's weekend, as it is the DOC's 100th anniversary," Mann-O'Halloran said. "We had over 100 alumni show up for the competition, and it was great to see them come back and compete. It was cool to see people who left the College many years ago come back to Dartmouth for the meet."
After the collegiate competition was over, each team sent one competitor to the STIHL chainsaw competition. For the men, the winner of this competition was awarded an automatic berth to the Collegiate National Championship.
Competing for Dartmouth in the first-ever STIHL women's competition was women's team captain Lawrence, who had a strong showing.
"She did very well, and she demonstrated how even if you are smaller, you can use technique and finesse to achieve a very good time, even if you can't apply the same brute force a larger competitor can," Mann-O'Halloran said.
Competing as the men's representative, Mann-O'Halloran put up a valiant effort, and was running right in the middle of the pack until a disqualification in the single buck scuttled his hopes for a title.
