Sue and I and Bud and Sandy Donaldson, two of our retiree traveling companions, took a little 2,000-mile drive the other day. We popped up to Libby, Mont. for a few days to watch friends compete in the first annual Kootenai Country Montana Chainsaw Carving Competition.
There is a loosely knit network of chainsaw carvers around the world and on frequent occasions they get together. I have friends from Pennsylvania who were hired by the Libby promoters to come out as paid consultants. Rick and Liz Boni run the Appalachian Arts Studio in Ridgway and organize the world’s largest annual competition now in its 18th year.
To make the event more appealing, their daughter Zoe and her husband Joe Dussia were both invited to compete as two of 14 carvers from as far away as Wales and Japan. Joe and Zoe drove across country with all their saws. The least we could do was drive 2,000 miles to root them on.
It took a couple days to get here. We slept over in Bend and Spokane on the way and took turns driving. Forest-fire smoke filled the air the entire 1,000 miles. It hung thick in the sky all week blurring the mountains during the event. Our rented cabin was in the evacuation zone up until the day before we arrived. All went well in the end, and it rained.
Montana terrain here is a mix of California-size mountains made of Pennsylvania-style sedimentary rock with trees of all sorts to carve into art.
What’s different is the abundance of wildlife in Montana. We rented a cabin along the Kootenai River and the six-mile river-side road we drove each day into town took a half hour because we had to stop and gawk at herds of bighorn sheep wandering through people’s front lawns munching the sweet grass. Clusters of deer wandered back and forth across the road as common as mailboxes. Flocks of turkey couldn’t make up their minds which side of the road they wanted to be on. Crows scanned the highways for food and eagles soared further up, swooping between treetops over the river.
Our road dead ends just past our place and becomes a walking trail that follows the river for miles. The ladies were able to get their daily steps. We walked through an abandoned apple orchard full of bright red apples, which we munched. We found trails to the water and fire rings on the beach. Local carvers told us that kids pulled six-pound rainbow trout out of the Kootenai on a regular basis. Bud and I did not fish. We were both still full of trout from the previous trip.
At the carving event in downtown Libby, several streets were blocked off and filled with tall logs and scaffolding. The air buzzed with saws. The ground was covered in sawdust and chunks of log that were not bear or deer or elk.
Behind the yellow caution tape carvers were shaping their pieces for the judging in three days. They got to carve from 8 a.m. until 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and Sunday until 1:30 p.m. when the judging and auction would begin.
Each day at noon carvers would engage in a quick-carve competition. They were given a cut of log and 90 minutes. At the end, they would auction off the pieces. They made almost $10,000 a day on the quick-carve auctions. Money was split with the carvers. The carver whose pieces earned the most auction money over three days won the quick carve event trophy.
In the end, most of the final masterpiece carvings sold for several thousand dollars apiece. The winner of the quick carve and main event was Steven Higgins, a young 32, energetic, talkative guy who was born in Santa Rosa and lives in Kansas City. He sold his ten-foot masterpiece and picked up a 1st place purse of $5,000.
His carving was a totem of heads: bear, ram, elk, eagle, fish. I said all week that he had the most realistic bear head in the bunch. Bears are the most frequently sculpted critter. They’re built like trees.
Our East coast friends won as well. Joe took third place and $2,000 and Zoe won third place in the People’s Choice category. Joe carved a totem. Zoe carved a giant gray wolf atop a precipice.
Liz was beaming with joy the whole time. She was involved but free of the pressure of being the event organizer. She got to walk around, socialize, go to dinner, hang out with her daughter. Rick didn’t come. He’s got a sore neck from a lifetime of swinging a chainsaw. We kept Liz company when she wasn’t surrounded by carvers.
We didn’t bid on any carvings. Our car was packed to the roof already.
We attended the final night celebrations at the Switchback, a big, noisy bar next to the Venture Inn where everyone stayed. Carvers were at ease, laughing, drinking, and exchanging business cards and pointers. We were legacy fans. We knew several of these guys from previous Ridgway events. We drove the furthest and got to sign the official event book and shirt with all the carvers.
It’s 5 a.m. now. We’re still in Libby. I got up at 3 a.m. to write this before anyone else woke up. Today we pack out and begin our drive home. I’m about to turn on the coffee. We will take a different route for the sake of variety.

Steve Gibbs is a retired Benicia High School teacher who has written a column for The Herald since 1985.

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