The History Channel's: Ax Men, Pass it on...

[Mindy]

www.stumpbranchlogging.com

Featured on the History Channel, premieres March 9th.

[Kevin]

Mindy is adding new information daily so be sure to check back in often.
It's come a long way since we first viewed the site.
I was surprised to see a climber on a logging site, I didn't think they were doing much of that any more.

[Burlkraft]

Mindy,

The site's really come a long way.....Good work  ;)  ;)

Can't wait for the show to start  ;D  ;D  ;D

[Mindy]

Thank you, like Kevin said I am updating daily, check back often!

Mindy

[Kevin]

Here's the latest press release on the show...

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=8429246183&topic=4994

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

From Deep in the Woods of the Pacific Northwest Comes an
American Original...
AX MEN
Set for Debut March 9, 2008 at 10PM ET/PT on History

New Series Explores Rough and Tumble
Logging Industry of Pacific Northwest

New York, NY, February 2008 – The first ever non-fiction series about the treacherous life of Pacific Northwest timber cutters, AX MEN, premieres Sunday, March 9 at 10pm ET/PT on History. From History and Original Productions, the same team responsible for the mega hit, Ice Road Truckers, this series looks at the legacy that the pioneers of our country laid for the present and future generations of loggers.

Deep in the woods of the Pacific Northwest, rugged men make their living doing one of the most dangerous jobs in history... Logging. Their mission: to retrieve timber perched on mountainsides too steep to access with machines. But this is no easy task.

For more than a hundred years, larger than life characters, many of whom are members of logging families that go back to the time when the West was being settled – have spent their days among towering trees and powerful machines and their nights in outposts far from the comforts of civilization. Ax Men will tell remarkable stories detailing the history of the logging industry, showing how technology has transformed life for today's logger, while the struggle of man versus nature stays the same.

Over the course of thirteen episodes, Ax Men follows four logging crews through a season in the remote forests of northwest Oregon. Plagued by mechanical failures, relentless weather-including a hurricane that ripped through the area- and violent and unpredictable terrain, these brave men risk their lives retrieving the very timber we depend upon to build our country. Snapped cables, runaway logs and treacherous machinery are among the many dangers that threaten the lives and safety everyday. Anything and everything can go wrong on these sites and the price of even the simplest mistake can mean death.

The four crews of Ax Men:
• Pihl Logging – Pihl Logging has been the lifeblood of Vernonia, Oregon for almost 25 years. Almost everyone in town - all 2,300 of them - knows someone who relies on company owner Mike Pihl to keep their family fed. Pihl Logging is comprised of a group of men who like to trade jibes with each other almost as much as they like to cut timber. Mike's son-in-law Kelly is being groomed to take over the business one day, but the real heart of the operation is 30-year veteran timber cutter Dwayne Dethlefs. Rounding out the crew is Dwayne's son Dustin, greenhorn Cody Davis, site boss Todd Cutright, and a host of other colorful characters.

• J.M. Browning Logging – Operating out of Astoria, Oregon, no-nonsense, all-business Jay Browning started his company from the ground up. Logging is one of the most dangerous jobs on the planet, and Jay Browning knows it. He lost his hand in a logging accident and now wears a prosthetic, but prides himself on not accepting any of the workers comp checks that followed the ordeal. Taking handouts isn't Jay Browning's style. J.M. Browning has the most powerful equipment, the most skilled workers and secures the biggest jobs in town. Jay is idolized by his employees, including son Jesse. Jesse's been sweating away in the woods for seven years in hopes that he will earn the right to take over his father's business one day.

• Stump Branch Logging - 32-year old company owner Melvin Lardy eats, sleeps and breathes logging. He's been in the business for more than a decade, but recently landed a monstrous job that could be his big break - if it doesn't break him in the process. Melvin's equipment is the logger's beginner set - a collection of rusted hunks of metal that stop at a moment's notice and shut down production without warning. Melvin has always succeeded where others have failed, though, and he's hoping his luck will hold out on this job. Part of his success depends on greenhorn Michael, who's been on the job only one month. Michael is working alongside his childhood buddies at Stump Branch, but lifelong friendship won't get him anywhere when it comes to learning the logging business. Michael is catching on quickly, but this business doesn't cut anyone a break.

• Gustafson Logging - Darrell Holthusen is the Superman of logging. By day, he oversees multiple job sites for one of the biggest companies in Astoria, Oregon. By night, Darrell coaches pee-wee football, counsels underprivileged youth, and is a devoted family man. Darrell's definition of a successful job is one that allows his men to return to their families each night unharmed. Gustafson Logging's newest job, aptly named "The Challenge," is one of the steepest and most inaccessible jobs they have ever attempted. To help him get the job done, Darrell is relying on Robby Motsinger, his yet-unproven crew chief, who must step up if he's going to earn the respect of Darrell and the other men of Gustafson Logging.

History.com will supplement Ax Men with a comprehensive minisite featuring more than 50 shortform pieces detailing the tools of the trade, where the lumber goes, the intricacy of the hand signals that loggers use and their origins; a 3-D interactive tour of the logging areas in Ax Men; a detailed history of logging; video and text bios of the loggers; a log burling game; the science of wood; a photo gallery; a plant a tree widget; and an episode guide with show descriptions and tune in info.
Ax Men is produced by Original Productions. Executive producers for Original Productions are Thom Beers and Philip Segal. Executive producers for History are David McKillop and Dolores Gavin.
History is a leading cable television network featuring compelling original, non-fiction specials and series that bring history to life in a powerful and entertaining manner across multiple platforms. The network provides an inviting place where people experience history in new and exciting ways enabling them to connect their lives today to the great lives and events of the past that provide a blueprint for the future. History has earned four Peabody Awards, three Primetime Emmy® Awards, ten News & Documentary Emmy® Awards and received the prestigious Governor's Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for the network's Save Our History® campaign dedicated to historic preservation and history education. History reaches more than 95 million Nielsen subscribers. The website is located at www.History.com.

[Kevin]

It's going to be good!  8)



 

[Jeff]

Oh yea...

I just watched the promotional video here:

http://www.history.com/minisites/axmen

[SwampDonkey]

I'll be looking for a DVD release in the future. I don't get those fancy TV channels on rabbit ears.

[Mindy]

FYI, the guys walking down the road are Stump-Branch crew! 

[Kevin]

The next new member has to tell those guys to wash their chaps.  ;D

[SwampDonkey]

If that's chain oil on them, not a good idea to put them through the laundry. Might be singing 'Light up my Life'. ;)

[Gary_C]

If that's chain oil on them, not a good idea to put them through the laundry. Might be singing 'Light up my Life'. ;)

Be quiet SD.      My wife has gotten used to oil soaked clothes and gloves and just washes them for me.  ;D

[SwampDonkey]

Part of the wall in a laundry mat down in Sussex blew out because someone washed a set of diesel/grease soaked overalls and stuffed them in a dryer. Kaboom. Signs were put up all over the mat warning not to do it. It was luck, no one was sitting and waiting on their laundry.

[Kevin]

Here's a man that wants to work and one who loves his job, he's a real inspiration to us all.

[LOGDOG]

That's awesome right there. Gotta tip your hat to that dude.

LOGDOG

[SwampDonkey]

Yeah, I'll say.  8)

[semologger]

Man that just show ya even though you are down you arent out. I know how hard it is I have a hand that barely opens my fingures dont move from a spinal cord injury a broken neck. There is always someone else out there with worse than you got it. I would like to introduce that guy to alot of lazy people around here that just has more kids so they can draw a bigger check.  8)

[Tillaway]

I see some of Gustafsons sides pretty regularly.  They log the lands next us.
Next time I see Jay Browning I will have to get his autograph ... I suspect he will whack me up side the head.  Look for the Harley Davidson murrel painted on the side of one of his yarders, its a Harley is pulling logs.  A deer hunter"borrowed" one of his D-8's to build a road to retrieve their stuck pickup a few years ago.  They made quite a mess in the process basically they built a road and Browning had to make the road go away.  He has logged two sales on my district since I have worked here.  He does the tough ones.

[blaze83]

this should be a great series, I can't wait. there was a series on discovery channel a couple of years ago called deadliest catch. It was about the crab fishing industry in the gulf of alaska. it's a tough way to earn a living also, but I don't think the Logging industry is any easier. I grew up in a small town in Montana called Libby;  our high school mascot was a logger. in the fall during football season at all our home games all the loggers would come to the games dressed like they just got off work, imagine some of them did. They would line the field and everytime we scored they would all start their saws and rev the engines, nothing like the roar of 20 or 30 husky's and stihl's to get the blood flowing,  gotta love small town high school football 8) 8)

[Kevin]

Hey Till, are they reforesting those cuts?
If so, with what?

[SwampDonkey]

I can't speak for these guys, but I've seen the same logging in BC. They are required to replace with the same species growing on site. Every site has a pre-harvest silviculture prescription done to identify the site types before a road is built or a tree is cut. Sitka spruce, cedar were the main ones planted because the hemlock regenerated like aspen everywhere. Hard to get yellow cypress seedlings, hard to germinate. On some of the coast Islands they planted amabilis fir (silver fir) to, we didn't have Doug fir where I worked only small pockets. I don't think they planted lodgepole pine because all that was there were growing near the swamps. You talk about a hard pine, the axes bounce off that stuff. On the Charlottes there was no fir of any kind, ziltch, zip and no poplar species.

Just my 2 pennies.

[Kevin]

Donk;
Do they leave the stumps?
I was up in northern BC several years ago and saw the clearcuts but I can't remember.

[Norm]

You know it's guys like that who remind me to never whine about how hard a job is.

Really looking forward to the show.

[Kevin]

Mindy;
Is there a single page ad available that can be downloaded, printed and dropped off at the local mills and yards?

[SwampDonkey]

Donk;
Do they leave the stumps?
I was up in northern BC several years ago and saw the clearcuts but I can't remember.

On the coast and islands, at least, the stumps are left. On the grapple sights the brush is cleaned off because they are limbed road side, those piles of brush are burned. The fallers just do that, fall the trees on those sites. On high lead sites the trees are limbed and bucked where they fall and leaves heavy slash which is worse in the gullies, not usually a good thing. Those gullies have to be managed for potential slides. We had to pre-assess every one of those gullies. Some potential logging sites had to be canceled after thousands of $$ spent because of potential erosion troubles. On heli logged sites it's similar, they are mostly limbed and bucked where the trees fall and the brush is thick in some places. Usually done on real steep ground or sensitive areas. I think they have tried bunching the brush with chopper on some sites, but it's too expensive. I pity the tree planters in those sites. But, the spacing between trees is a lot wider than here in the east. 600-1200 stems/ha, where as here it's 1850-2500 st/ha.