A Cut Above the Rest

McGill's most successful team is also among its most unheralded. These athletes have plenty of axes to grind as they chop their way to championships.

by NEALE MCDEVITT

It is 6 am at the Morgan Arboretum. The snow along the path is packed so hard footsteps barely make a sound. A rabbit darts from behind a woodpile and bounces into the safety of a dark stand of trees, kicking up small puffs of powder in its helter-skelter wake. Except for the stars overhead and a lone lamppost illuminating a shed at the end of the path, the forest is black and foreboding. It feels like there isn't a person left on earth.

Suddenly, the shed door bursts open. More than a dozen people rush out, diving onto the cold ground to knock off a series of pushups. Springing back to their feet, they run down the path toward the parking lot. The faces that whiz by are young, determined and, remarkably, wide awake. Forty metres down the path, they wheel around and sprint back for more pushups in the snow.

Soldiers at boot camp? Black Ops preparing to save the free world? Nope, just another day at the office for the Clansmen, McGill's Macdonald Campus-based woodsmen, one of Canada's top university timbersports teams. The team is preparing for an upcoming competition in Truro, Nova Scotia, the final event of the Canadian Intercollegiate Lumberjacking Association (CILA) season. While the women's squad is hoping for a top-three result overall, the men's team is poised to repeat as CILA Cup champions.

By dawn's early light

By the time most Montrealers are rubbing the sleep from their eyes, these lumberjacks and lumberjills have cut, sawed and chopped through a small forest of lumber. As local folk sip coffee in their robe and slippers, they're strapping on metal shin armour to ward off crippling blows from wayward axes. And while commuters silently curse the traffic from the sanctuary of their toasty warm sedans, they're sprinting up 40-foot poles barbed with splinters, wearing cleats that look like bear traps. Football may have its macho lexis of "blitzes" and "bombs," but only in lumberjacking does one toss axes sharp enough to shave with and compete in events with such memorable names as Crosscut to Death.

Although the Clansmen have been known to train eight times a week prior to major competitions, coach John Watson, DipAg'73, the Morgan Arboretum's forest operations manager, believes the pre-dawn sessions are the real catalyst for success. "Other teams train in the afternoon," he sneers, eyes narrowing like a Savannah lion who's just glimpsed a gnu with a limp. "This weeds out the ones who aren't serious."

And make no mistake, these are serious athletes. While the women kick off their workout with a gruelling session of log decking - in which pairs of lumberjills haul heavy logs up and down a crude ramp using nothing but a peavie (a dangerous-looking, two-pronged device which must have roots traceable to the Tower of London) - the men set up for a little crosscut sawing.

Armed with the classic two-man saw, pairs of woodsmen take turns lopping off thin disks (called cookies) from a thick log strapped securely to a saw horse. Among the more experienced pairs there is a synchronicity and coordination, often seen between dancers and hockey linemates, that make an arduous task seem effortless. Wood cookies fall to the ground like ash flicked from a giant cigar.

The grace and simplicity of movement becomes more evident when less experienced teammates hunker down to try their hand. Initially, the saw slides back and forth just as quickly, slicing to the halfway point with similar ease. But somewhere in the final third, the blade wobbles and the teeth bite hard into the wood. The long blade comes to a sudden shuddering stop. Coach Watson grins tightly from beneath his wool cap. "What's the matter, Kyle," he asks. "Too much Scotch last night?" The others chuckle as this young King Arthur tries to disengage his stubborn singing sword.

McGill's greatest team?

Watson is a Mac man who relishes nothing more than recounting the birth of the team back in 1954, when McGill invited the Macdonald Aggies to compete in its second annual Intramural-Intercollegiate Woodsmen Competition. Despite having but a week to prepare for the event and facing many of McGill's top athletes, the upstart Aggies, coached by Watson's father Bob, came home with the championship hardware. Since then, the team has known only two coaches - Watson Senior and Junior.

The athletes themselves don't seem to mind the lack of fanfare accorded other sports like hockey, football and soccer - the unique nature of the sport is what attracted them in the first place. "This isn't normal," smiles women's captain, Valerie Quesnel, a second-year student in the Farm Management and Technology program. "I don't want to chase a ball around a field."

Johnathan Blais, another Farm Management and Technology student, is a perfect example of someone who has found his athletic calling as a woodsman. In just his second year with the Clansmen, Blais's meteoric rise has put him among the elite Canadian university lumberjacks. "He's not particularly good at other sports," says Watson matter-of-factly, "but he's an exceptional woodsman. If we let him come out at four in the morning, he would." Blais will go on to end the season a single point shy of capturing the league scoring title, and be one of only two Canadians to qualify for berths at the Loggersports Collegiate Invitational, a major American competition to be held this summer.

Risks and rewards

When asked if everyone on the team has all their body parts, Alison Poirier, a first-year Agricultural Economics student, smiles. "Mostly," she deadpans as she makes the final adjustments to her metal shin protectors before she takes her turn at the Underhand Chop. "Of course, there was that girl last year who had the episode with the axe." Episode? Questioned further, Poirier describes an unlucky lumberjill who, thanks to a fluky bounce, managed to hit herself right between the eyes with her own axe blade. "Oh she's okay," reassures Poirier, "but she's got a nice scar."

Between rounds of log splitting, Kayla McCann, a second-year student in Farm Management and Technology, vouches for the story's validity. "Yeah, she was pretty lucky," McCann says earnestly. "The doctor [who treated the wound] actually said if you're going to get hit in the head with an axe, that was the best place to do it." With that, McCann calmly rears up and splits a sizeable chunk of wood in two.

Watson stands back, surveying the scene. "These are all farm kids," he says. "They aren't afraid of hard work. They pitch hay, milk cows, they do their chores. If they weren't serious about this, I wouldn't be out here at six in the morning." It's as close as Watson will get to gushing.

He'll soon have much to gush about. His charges do him proud in Truro. Blais leads the way, winning three events and ranking first among the 70 woodsmen taking part in the competition. A pair of Clansmen rookies, Bob Oligny and Chris Allen, grab top honours in the Axe Throw and Chainsaw competitions, respectively. McCann finishes first in the women's Chainsaw event. While McGill's lumberjills end the season respectably in third spot, the men's lumberjacking squad captures its fourth consecutive championship.

But those triumphs are still days away. On this dimly lit morning, Watson is busy focusing his attention on a pair of Clansmen who are talking when they should be chopping. "See that? I'm over here and they're starting to slack," he snarls, stomping down the hard-packed path one more time.