25 Years In The Making
Come October this year I’ll be “celebrating” 25 years since I first picked up a chainsaw. My original career choice was steered towards working for the ranger service and having finished higher exams at school, I enrolled at the Barony College near Dumfries to become an ERC! Don’t get too excited, it’s just shorthand for Environmental Resources and Countryside Skills which as you can see is a much bigger mouthful. The year long course was basically split between the academic Environmental Resources and the completely practical Countryside Skills. We were given a two week block on commercial use of chainsaws which I’ve always thought odd, as a standard certified course is only one week, but we did not gain any certification as a result of doing two. Anyway I suppose the seed had been planted. This was my first escape from home and was a very enjoyable year both academically and socially. I even got a 6-week block working away on a Viking centre in Denmark. Come to think of it, maybe that’s where I got the travel bug from too!
Having completed this I progressed on to HNC Countryside Management this time at Elmwood college in Fife. My late application meant the college digs were full and I ended up lodging with a family at the opposite end of the town. This combined with most of my class mates being mature students, and a heavy classroom based course made for a very unhappy Jonny. I was actually the only student to formally graduate as the others either gave up, completed through distance learning or were continuing to the HND so wouldn’t actually graduate until the following year. Fortunately for me I had secured a seasonal Rangers job at Beecraigs Country Park near my hometown of Linlithgow, where I’d already spent many hours as a volunteer. The only downside being that now I was an employee, I had significantly less choice in what work activities I was given.
With chainsaws still in the back of my mind I decided to return to the Barony after my seasonal contract ended, this time to do Commercial Forestry Operations. This covered all aspects of preparation, planting, establishment, maintenance and eventually harvesting. It wasn’t long before I realised waving a chainsaw round all day is good for neither your body nor your bank account so after completing this half year course I progressed onto Commercial Forestry Machinery. I can tell you it wasn’t long into the course before I realised I’d rather be skint and sore than fat and lazy, so I sidestepped from the purpose-built forwarder units to smaller more versatile agri-based tractor and trailer teamed with line skidder winch. By this point I’d lost interest in the Ranger Service and I was heading firmly down the Chainsaw route.
Having left the Barony for a second time, I had a short stint with a utility company clearing trees from power lines but an introduction of a stone wall and my car (you might say fortunately) brought that to an end. I then found work with a local arboricultural company and ended up working there for nearly 18 years. My roll there changed quite a bit, starting as a trainee arborist and later becoming team leader and eventually senior arborist. The company had a sister business which did training, and I became an LANTRA instructor and later a City & Guilds assessor, swapping hats depending on the workload and where my skills were needed most.
I think I’d been there maybe 12 months when I was given a book on “how to chainsaw carve” by Hall Macintosh, which opened up another avenue of chainsaw use. Over the years my abilities for chainsaw carving grew and so did my tool collection. When people asked me what I did for a living, by that point I didn’t quite know what to say. I latterly just said “I’m a chainsaw operator “ as it covered all bases without having to explain things.
It’s the carving or sculpture if I’m using my sales lingo, that I spend most of my time doing now, and it’s a remarkable activity that is so far removed from the red tap of climbing or hand cutting it’s not funny. It’s even considered to be entertainment! Now I expect you’re all visualising me hacking lumps out of a big log in a cloud of exhaust fumes and sawdust. Well, you’re partly right, although I also carve ice, and in February this year I travelled to Fairbanks, Alaska to help build a sculpture park which hosted the World Ice Carving Championships. I have carved ice for an Edinburgh based producer for probably 6 or 7 years now but the 120kg blocks they grow are small fry compared with word class competition ice at 1-1.5t each!
Of the 20 something strong team building the park, I was one of just 3 people who called themselves chainsaw wood carvers. Some were full time ice carvers, some sculpted snow and sand, several carved pumpkins and other fruits. What I found remarkable was that most of my teammates were from a culinary background as ice carving is taught in USA culinary schools as standard. I can tell you as a former chainsaw instructor and assessor, there was more than one occasion when I watched, breathing in through gritted teeth, and a racing heartbeat.
When I arrived, Fairbanks was experiencing record low temperatures of -41c which makes the ice difficult to work with. Milling of blocks into slabs was halted until temperatures rose so I was presented with a full block and told only that it needed to be child friendly. Subject and design! I got stuck in and after a day I’d roughed out a life-size astronaut. Extreme cold like that forces you to operate differently. You’re covered head to toe in exactly the right amount of clothing to be warm without sweating, and heat pads are stuffed into your socks and gloves. Even the tools act differently so as soon as you start to feel the cold, you’re back inside to warm up before having another go. The second day saw me using power tools to sand, polish and detail the figure. You’d think this would be easier, but the air-cooled tools made holding them for any length of time very difficult. By the end of day two my colleague had installed lighting into the base of the finished carving and by dark o’clock I was able to marvel at my own creation. “Scotty McMoony”, complete with saltire flag, bum flap, thistle logo and a half bottle of Buckie in his back pocket!
Looking for projects to get involved with I ended up working on a gigantic snow sculpture of the park logo. Wooden forms are constructed and then snow was blown in and left to stick. Once firmed up the forms are removed, and snow is cut away using everything from chainsaws, shovels and huge Japanese chisels. You might say I put A hole in Alaska!
As temperatures began to rise, park construction could resume and the process of milling ice blocks with a chainsaw mill and then erecting the slabs like tombstones began. Progress is fast as long as the ice doesn’t crack too badly and there’s quite a big tolerance for inaccuracy. You just fill the gaps with slush and a little water. As always technique and self-discipline is key or you can turn a good block bad quite easily.
After a few days I was asked if I’d like to go to the pond to help with the harvest which absolutely I did! The pond is hidden in the middle of a massive scrap yard, which in warmer months is or was a sand/gravel quarry and I’m told was very deep. The ice is cleared of snow and then marked out into a grid. A custom 40ich chainsaw buggy is used to free the blocks which are then floated down a channel to a bay where a ‘zoom-boom’ (telehandler) lifted the massive blocks out. Lifting is the most hazardous part as if the block shift off the forks and starts going, it’s impossible to stop. It’s essential you’re never in the wrong place! It’s not very exciting and I can confirm it’s not very easy cutting straight lines either, but it is an experience every ice carver needs to be involved with. The blocks are then transported to the park on flatbed trucks.
Come the second week and I was back in the park helping to build and decorate games for the kids including curling, crazy golf and table hocky. I was warned that they have a short life as the kids are not very sympathetic towards, well any of it!.
As the team started to leave the park in preparation for the competition commencing, I was left tying up loose ends and making everything look pretty. By this point the temperatures had flipped and they were experiencing record highs. The sun will cause the ice to crack and potentially shatter which is not only heart breaking for us but potentially dangerous for anyone nearby, so we had to cover all the carvings with a UV protective membrane. It was great to see the park fully illuminated and ready to open to the public. Testing the slides was of course an essential part of the job.
Unfortunately, the first day of the first competition was my last day in Alaska and I was given a very important job to do, the coffee boy! It’s actually a very glamorous job driving a golf buggy round with hot drinks and snacks for the competitors showing off my new beaver trappers hat. No more cold ears for me! I got to meet everyone and saw the start of the carvings. It was a very gratifying job being the person who brings warm in the cold, and I was welcomed gratefully.
I followed the multi-block, double-block and single-block competitions closely through social media for several weeks but unfortunately the warm weather took its toll on the ice and forced the park to close just a little bit early. In an environment so harsh, local families made great use of the park to entertain the kids so it’s a shame it didn’t last the full term.
‘Bootcamp’ is a voluntary activity and there’s a minimum involvement to qualify for the package but if you fancy getting involved then have a look at the Ice Alaska website. It is my hope to return next year and after bootcamp, join a team for the multi-block competition at least.
As time passes by some of the activities that supported my financial and mental well being are slipping away and new ones are emerging. Visual strength grading in timber is one I am building up and I am currently in talks doing log cabin construction. That one term, “chainsaw carver” isn’t ready to leave me yet though.