AUBURN — When Breanna Wing was a middle schooler making movies with her friends, she didn’t know that one day she would be working to make a documentary about competitive timber sports and the Maine women involved with it. “I went to Auburn Middle School, which I think is where it all started,” Wing recalled. In 2002, Wing received her first laptop at Auburn Middle School. Soon, she was editing her first short film with the laptop. “When I went to Auburn Middle School, then-governor Angus King had the laptop initiative. My class was one of the first classes that received laptops,” Wing said. The laptops came with iMovie on them, an application for amateur video editing, which Wing used to her benefit. “I was doing a service learning project about the Greater Androscoggin Humane Society. I wanted to showcase its current building because I knew they were trying to raise money to build a larger building to house more animals without having to revert to euthanasia,” Wing said. “I made a very short film that was on the news and presented to Gov. Angus King.” The film was looped into efforts to raise money for the animal shelter, which later led to a bigger building. “At a very young age, I saw how film can not only make people emotional, make people care, but essentially change the community and change the world. I was hooked,” Wing said. “I always loved movies. But when I saw what I could do just with after-school editing on those laptops, I became completely obsessed.” In the decades since, Wing has been involved with several Hollywood productions on and behind the camera. She is still chasing the same high. “I ended up moving to Los Angeles to study film and television in college,” she said. “And then I made another documentary while in college. It was shot in Cameroon about the illegal bushmeat trade and endangered primates. Once again, it was a profound experience. So I continue. I love narrative too, big blockbuster hits, action films, indie darlings, but this love of community and making a difference and wanting to leave the world a better place, it stays with me.” This time, Wing hopes to change something for the better with a documentary about Maine’s timber sports and lumberjills, a term for women involved with the industry. “My family actually started sending me videos of my future sister-in-law, Hanna, axe throwing and doing competitive lumber cutting, and I was like, ‘what is going on? This is fascinating,’” Wing said. She flew back to Maine with her cinematographer and producer, Indeana Underhill. “Fryeburg Fair has the Woodmen’s Field Day events. That was our starting point. We went to the Jigger Johnson LumberJack and Jill Festival in Gorham, New Hampshire,” Wing said. Within a week, she was interviewing as many timber athletes as she could. “The more I learned and the more I met these women, I just fell in love with them because they are an inspiration,” Wing said. “They are so empowering because they’re doctors, lawyers, CEOs, stay-at-home moms, librarians. They are single moms getting their masters in neuroscience. They are firefighters. They are busy women managing it all and still taking part in a physically demanding sport.” And then she delved into the history of lumberjills. “I started learning about the history of where this all came from; how in 1942, the men went to war and women went to the forests to help keep the timber industry afloat. A lot of these women in World War II were having similar emotions and themes of female friendships, independence, strength, camaraderie, and watching their bodies transform and become strong,” Wing said. “It parallels today with what these athletes are doing.” “Axe Woman: The Modern Lumberjill” is set become a dynamic documentary but it intends to accomplish a few more things. “A lot of the lumberjills are redefining society, with how they have navigated societal perceptions, their physical power, identity and family responsibilities,” Wing said. “They challenge gender norms.” “We want the kids to get excited, to get outdoors, get active, and get healthy,” she said. “A lot of timber sports do that, especially from log rolling to underhand chop. It teaches kids about not only the sportsmanship aspect, but tool safety, and it excites them to get outside and have fun.” TIMBER SPORTS IN MAINE Timber sports has a growing community in Maine. “Everyone comes into it their own way,” Alissa Wetherbee, a Maine lumberjill involved with the documentary, said. “I got into timber sports because I grew up in Maine. Cutting firewood with my family, I learned how to run a chain saw and use axes and all about the different species of trees.” Wetherbee runs the Axe Women Loggers of Maine with her husband, Mike, a team of over 30 lumberjills traveling across the country for timber sports. “I started going to local fairs and festivals once I realized that they had the woodsmen’s days or a lumberjack day,” she said. “And through that, I met more and more women that were community. We learned more and more together and from each other.” “It’s been amazing to see how timber sports has grown for women over the years,” Wetherbee said. “Back when I started some 20 years ago, there were not nearly as many women in the sport as there are now. We were allowed to compete and we were welcomed to compete at most competitions, but we would go in knowing that we were competing against men.” “In the events like chopping, a large, strong man is most likely going to beat a woman,” she added. There is a lot of technique involved, but as you can imagine, there’s also a lot of strength. Now just about every competition you go to, there’s women’s events.” Even with a growing presence in timber sports, female competitors can’t support themselves on timber earnings alone. “Sometimes I like to call timber sports a very expensive hobby,” Wetherbee said. “The axes that we’re buying cost a thousand dollars and you pay a lot to travel to different competitions. You can wreck an axe very easily if you hit a knot in a log. Things are very expensive,” she continued. Earnings do not live up to the expenses in timber sports, mostly because of prizes that are out of proportion for lumberjills. “Sometimes, it can be frustrating for women getting into the sport knowing that they have to spend several thousand dollars to buy their own equipment, to possibly only win half as much as what their male counterpart could win at a competition,” Wetherbee said. “The crosscut saws are probably $3,000 a piece. If you were to go and win several events at a large competition, you might make $1,000 in a day. It’s a good day of competing if you break even with what you’ve spent altogether,” Wetherbee said. Their team earns more through shows. Different venues will hire lumberjills put on demonstrations. “We will bring in our own team of women and have them compete against each other, or we will do lessons like log rolling lessons for kids,” she said. “That’s primarily what we do and that’s what keeps us traveling as much as we do. We’ll try to fit in competitions in between those events when we can.” Since 2021, Wetherbee and the lumberjill community have been trying to get the word “lumberjill” recognized by the publishers of Merriam-Webster Dictionary. “It has to be very organic. You have to get it out there. You can’t just contact Merriam-Webster Dictionary and say, ‘hey, we want this word in there.’ They are actually doing their own research from their end. The need to see it in print and hear people say it,” Wetherbee said. She believes getting more women involved in the sport is key to further growth. “It definitely makes things easier to get more and more women involved now that things are more cool,” she noted. “The timber industry is not as in-demand anymore, Wing said. “But I think it’s a really great way of taking it into a different context and making it a fun activity, a sport,” Wing said. “We are just starting our fundraising effort,” she said. “The funds that we raise through the donations will help us continue filming because we filmed our sizzle reel and we’ve learned so much. I’ve spent the past year writing, researching and developing the concept and the story. Once we raise the money, we can continue filming and we have plans to go back to the Fryeburg Fair, to New Hampshire, and to attend a lot of the woodsmen’s events all over New England.” “I also want to tackle the sustainability aspect of this sport. There’s a very large story to be told,” Wing said. Wing has big plans for the documentary. “My ultimate vision is theatrical screenings that lead to streaming platforms,” the filmmaker said. “It would be fantastic if a streaming platform or studio would pick us up and make this a very real project very quickly. Right now, it’s an independent documentary, very grassroots. We’re pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps in that true Maine grit I was born and raised with.” More information about Wing’s documentary, “Axe Women: The Modern Lumberjill” is available at axewomenfilm.com.
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