At some stage, you’ve probably flipped onto ESPN 12 around 3am and found yourself watching a professional lumberjack competition.
And while the World Series of Beer Pong and professional outhouse racing might make you laugh and say, “I could do that,” timbersports definitely do not.
“It’s a very under-appreciated sport,” says Aidan Ahrens (pictured in the lead photo of this article), a professional lumberjack and performer in the Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show in Ketchikan.
“It’s a very, very technical sport that a lot of people don’t really give it credit for.”
While it’s not quite hitting a 100-mile-an-hour curveball, timbersports are unquestionably tough, blending technical skill, physical conditioning and fearlessness, putting them physically on par with any sport you see on ESPN.
So if you've ever wondered how to become a professional lumberjack, here is everything you need to know about one of America's most underrated sports.
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How Professional Lumberjacks Get Their Start
Many professional lumberjacks start in other sports, then gravitate toward timber when they get to college.
That was the case for Daniel Miner, who also performs in the Great Alaskan show. He went to Paul Smith College in Upstate New York to play golf until he discovered the school had a timbersports club team.
“I was always a pretty strong athlete through high school, and this was something I’d never heard of,” Miner says.
“So, I tried out, and I made the team, and it was probably one of the only sports I ever really had a true challenge.”
Ahrens got his start at the SUNY School of Environmental Science and Forestry in the Adirondacks, where he joined the Woodman’s Club on a lark.
He enjoyed it so much that when he completed SUNY-ESF’s one-year program, he joined the timbersports team at Syracuse.
Others are born into it. Boone Scheer, who currently serves as the performance manager in Ketchikan, comes from a long line of wood-cutting athletes.
His father, Rob Scheer, was a three-time 90-foot speed climbing champion, and his uncle was a champion log roller.
Rob founded a lumberjack show in the family’s hometown of Hayward, Wisconsin, then ultimately branched off to found the show in Ketchikan.
“I did little log rolling exhibitions growing up,” Boone says. “When I was about 15, I started chopping and speed climbing. At 16, I was in shows basically full-time, and competed at the world championships multiple times.
"At 18, I moved back up to Alaska. I’ve kind of been there since.”
How to Turn Professional in Timbersports
Like any sport, growing up playing or playing in college doesn’t guarantee you turn pro. And since timbersports don’t have an organized league, making a living at it requires some hustling.
Some lumberjacks—like Ahrens—go the show route, showcasing their skills for spectators from New England to Alaska. Recruiters like Boone Scheer recruit from college teams and use their existing lumberjacks to refer old teammates.
Miner was performing in Mackinac City, Michigan, when his former teammates, who were working in Ketchikan, encouraged him to come out.
Ahrens has a similar story about his Syracuse teammates giving him a heads-up when the show was looking for lumberjacks.
Most of the athletes who Scheer recruits are juniors, seniors or recent college graduates looking for a job after school. With that youth comes an inherent lack of experience and technical proficiency of pros in their 30s.
“In college, our goal was to chop the wood as fast as you can and not really care about technique,” says Ahrens.
“But when it comes to doing it professionally, there’s a lot of really weird, meticulous little things that you never would think about when it comes to chopping a piece of wood.”
To help, Scheer created a “feeder” program, where his greener lumberjacks serve as axe-throwing instructors for cruise ship passengers. In their free time, they refine their skills.
“They have free rein of the arena, chopping wood, and practice, practice, practice,” Scheer says.
“They’re surrounded by guys who have been in the sport for multiple years, and we have multiple world champions. So, they get the hands-on training.”
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Professional Lumberjack Competitions and Prize Money
Miner, like many of his fellow Alaska performers, also competes in timbersports. He was the 2025 top rookie in the STIHL timbersports series, which is as close to an official “league” as the sport has in the United States.
While the STIHL series is probably the one you’ve seen on late-night TV, many other competitions take place across the country.
However, those events are solely for prize money—there’s no points system used to crown a champion at the end of the year.
Instead, the sport’s kings and queens are crowned at the Lumberjack World Championships, held each summer at the Lumberjack Bowl in Hayward. And while there is great prestige in winning—and some cash—it’s not enough to quit your day job.
Aside from a handful of athletes at the top of the sport who get sponsorships, pros do timbersports as a hobby.
“It’s not something you do for a living,” says Event Director Samantha LaSalle, a Hayward native who’s been log rolling since she was 5.
“There’s money to be made at all these shows; we have over $77,000 in prize money at ours alone.
"However, the gear is so expensive, the travel is expensive, the hotels, the meals. They still have to go to their job during the week. We’ve got chemists and attorneys and loggers and farmers and massage therapists.”
Miner said a competition axe can cost $500; single-handed and double buck saws range from $2,500 to $3,000; and hot saws—chainsaws retrofitted with snowmobile or dirt bike motors—cost between $7,500 and $10,000.
“And the worst part is, you see somebody has a $10,000 machine and the machine doesn’t start on the first try, and then you just lost the race,” he adds.
For their part, performers in the Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show don’t necessarily need to work during the offseason, as salaries range from $50,000 to $75,000.
Ahrens says he was planning to bartend in his hometown of East Aurora, New York, this off-season. Miner says lumberjacking is his full-time career, but he still helps with his father’s landscaping business in New Hampshire when he’s home.
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How Professional Lumberjacks Train Off-Season
Training for the sport isn’t so straightforward either.
“It is pretty difficult because you can’t just go to Sporting Goods and buy a chopping stand, right? You either have to buy from somebody, or you have to be creative and make ’em yourself,” Ahrens says.
“I found a stump in my yard and I screwed another stump to it, and I pretty much just bolt the piece of wood down that I need to chop.”
Traditional conditioning typically combines weights and kettlebell exercises with some yoga and mobility work to enhance range of motion and prevent injuries.
Similar to golf or baseball, size and strength are helpful, but technique is what truly makes you great.
“I’m one of the more muscular guys here, and it doesn’t matter,” Ahrens adds.
“There’s a trope in the show sometimes, where I’ll go out there and people will be like, oh, he’s massive. Then one of the more senior guys will come out and we’ll do our first event and he’ll blow me out of the water.”
While in Alaska, the lumberjacks get one or two days off each week, giving them a chance to explore the vast Alaskan wilderness and visit the salmon fishing capital of the world.
“The sun comes up at 4 a.m. and doesn’t set until 10:30 to 11 o’clock, so they’re basically working half-days,” Scheer says.
“So, they can take the company skiff out fishing, or go to the beach, just relax.”
When in town, they are celebrities.
“We finish a show and we go over and get a beer to celebrate, and we see people that were at our show, they will usually come over, buy us beers or offer to buy us food or whatever,” Miner says. “And they look at us like we’re superheroes.”
Lumberjack World Championships 2026: Dates, Tickets, and How to Watch
While there’s no Super Bowl of Timbersports, the closest event is the Lumberjack World Championships, held each July in Hayward, Wisconsin.
Since timbersports lack a formal governing body, professional lumberjacks and jills—who compete in 50 to 60 other events throughout the year—apply and are accepted by a committee that reviews their resume and decides if they qualify.
It’s a bit like the College Football Playoff, except no one gets special treatment for attending Notre Dame.
Lumberjacks and jills then travel from around the world to compete in 10 different disciplines, including chopping, cutting, hot saw, log rolling, boom running, speed climbing, axe throwing and team relays.
The event features 21 competitions along with an over-60 Masters division. All athletes compete in the first round on Thursday, narrowing the field to the top 12 on Friday, and the final six on championship Saturday. Overall, the world championship awards $77,000 in prize money.
If you’re interested in attending, the 2026 Lumberjack World Championships will take place at the Lumberjack Bowl in Hayward from July 16-18.
Tickets are available for purchase on the Lumberjack World Championships website.
If you want to experience professional timbersports firsthand, The Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show runs from April to October, which coincides with the time cruise ships stop in Ketchikan.
There are also dozens of other shows and competitions across the U.S. and Canada throughout the year, all of which will give you a better appreciation for timbersports than watching on ESPN 12.
Who knows, maybe you'll even kickstart your career as a professional lumberjack in the process.
