Whether they were experienced lumberjacks or folks who had never even seen an ax, the Farthest North Sports Festival was fun for all of the 40 participants and 10 to 20 spectators, said David Spencer, Prime Minister of Resource Management Society. The festival began in 1998 by faculty and students from the UAF Department of Forest Sciences, and today there are the same seven events that contestants choose from: pulp toss, ax throw, log roll, one-person bowsaw, one and two-person crosscut saw, fire building, and log birling.

In the pulp toss, teams of two or four play a sort of horseshoe game with heavy tree limbs.

The ax throw consists of three throws at a target, trying to combine the most points. This was the favorite event of Josh Good, a sophomore studying Elementary Education. "You get to throw an ax, that's cool enough," Good said. "I thought it'd be harder than it was."

Log rolling takes a team of two people to push a 10 to 12-foot tree trunk 20 feet and back in as little time as possible.

The sawing events are timed, and either done alone with a bow saw or with two people using a crosscut saw.

Log birling is timed balancing on a log floating in Ballaine Lake.

The fire builders were teams of two whose aim was to build the best fire with only two matches.

With the crowd cheering for teammates and rivals alike, everyone was out to enjoy themselves. Sara Buzby, her husband and their two-year-old daughter Olivia had never been to the forest sports festival before but thought this would be something fun for the whole family.

"This (festival) was a good way to bring the club together as a group and have fun at the same time," said Darce Holcomb, a senior majoring in Wildlife Biology and also the president of the campus Wildlife Society.

The general concept has been the same since the first event eight years ago. "It's not about competition, we're just out here having fun," said John Fox, a professor of Forest Sciences at UAF who's been at UAF for 32 years and was one of the original founders of the Farthest North Sports Festival. "Today we use tools, this helps us remember the ol' days, when these tools were a matter of livelihood. Now we can celebrate the past and present."

David Valentine, also a Forest Sciences faculty member, said they are trying to make a tie with the community.

"Lots of people make it a part of their calendar, coming every year," Valentine said. He stressed the importance of having fun and not being competitive.

Valentine encouraged more students and community members to come and enjoy the festival.

"Everyone that comes out is just here to have fun. We always get really positive feedback from the participants."