'My Story:' Throwing an Axe at My Wedding
Hinesburg former lumberjack shares a story about her wedding and her long love of and participation in competitively throwing a double-bladed axe. An AUDIO story.
Editor’s note: This is another in our ongoing ‘My Story’ audio series which consists of an edited three- to six-minute audio of a Hinesburg resident telling a story about a memorable personal photograph. These are intended as audio stories so you can appreciate hearing it in the storyteller’s own voice. Just click the arrow above to play the recording.
In this story, Denise Bouchard talks about the photo below – how it came to be and how for many years she competed in a variety of lumberjack sports in New England and in the National Championships in Wisconsin. Two recent photos of Denise are also included below.
Here’s Denise today. While her lumberjack days are over, she still holds her memories close to her heart with her sense of mirth always nearby.
If you wish to listen to other stories in this ‘My Story’ series, click here.
For those wishing to read along while Denise tells the story, the transcript is below. Please remember that a transcript reads much differently than a written piece.
My name is Denise Bouchard, and this photo is one of my favorite photos. It was taken at my wedding reception over 30 years ago. The photo is of me throwing a double bit throwing axe at a wooden target. The funny part of the photo is that I am in my long, sequined wedding gown at the time.
We had an outdoor wedding reception and a lot of my lumberjack buddies were there. And when we all got together, somebody always puled out some axes and a throwing target. And so they set that up at our reception. People were taking turns throwing and having a great time, and somebody suggested that I give it a throw. My first thought was, ‘No way.
I absolutely cannot. I’m going to rip my dress.’ And I didn’t think I would be able to move, to throw the axe because the arms on the dress were a little bit tight fitting.
But it didn’t take too much convincing. I gave it a whirl, and I was at the target line and getting set up to throw. And I think every single person around me had a camera. and all I could hear was, click, click, click, click, click, click. I never felt so photographed in my whole life. It was hysterical. I gave it a throw. I don’t even remember if I hit the target at this point, but that part is irrelevant, because it just was really fun that here I was in my wedding gown, chucking axes.
I got into the axe throwing business when I was a student at Paul Smith’s College in the Adirondacks, and they had a woodsman’s team. When I was a freshman, I attended a club fair, where all the college clubs showed off what they were all about. So I went down to the practice area at the for the woodsman’s team and saw a demonstration, and I was hooked from day one. It was just a fascinating step back into history.
I competed at Paul Smith’s for two years, and then I went on to SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York, and they had a team also, so I competed for two years there.
And then when I graduated, I started going out to, not really professional contests, but not college contests. So I traveled all over New England competing in lumberjack sports. I made it out to the World Championships in Hayward, Wisconsin, twice with a sawing partner.
It was just this wonderful, exciting, fun, different sport. It’s unique. And powerful.
And the fact that I was a young female competing with another young female in often male dominated contests – I liked breaking barriers. So my partner, Dory and I, we worked really well together, and a lot of times we could beat the men, which was very satisfying.
I had a lot of personalized vanity plates over the years, and and one of my license plates said, ‘NICE AXE.’ And I pulled up to go into a contest one time, and the person at the ticket booth said, ‘Oh, this must be your husband’s truck, right? And he’s here for the contest.’ So I said, ‘Like, no, sir, this is my truck, and I am here for the contest.
So I just loved, like I said, the uniqueness of it, the camaraderie, the, you know, like these old time lumberjack events that originated from the lumber camps, cross-cut sawing, tree climbing, log rolling, axe throwing, and it just was a fun, really fun, sport.
What were you best at?
Axe throwing and cross-cut sawing. And they’re very different because axe throwing is all about quelling your nerves when you’re at a contest in front of either a couple hundred or a couple thousand people, depending on the venue. But it wasn’t necessarily physically challenging.
It just, it was like any other accuracy sports, you know, throwing darts, you just practice and practice and practice. I used to have a wooden target here in the backyard, and I must have thrown a thousand axes or more. And so after a while, you just get that muscle memory down pat. So it’s it was all about like quelling your nerves when you were in a contest.
But the crosscut sewing was so much more physical. And it was great fun because you really had to communicate with your partner and you had to pull the saw evenly and make it really smooth, and it just was like, like fluid when you got it down.
So I lost both my partners, and it just felt like a good time to stop. But I was quite honestly lost, lost for a few years because I, like my identity was as a lumberjack competitor. And so I thought, well, what do I what do I do, you know, without that? For a long time, I didn’t even go to another contest or watch it on TV because it was just like such a, you know, a tug at my heart.
But life goes on, and I still have all those wonderful memories.
Great story!
Denise! What fun - I never knew this!