TRENTON, Maine — Every summer, deep in the woods of Trenton, a group of dedicated performers show off an important piece of Maine's history.
Wisconsinite-turned-Mainer Tina Schee brought the Great Maine Lumberjack Show to the state almost three decades ago. Better known as Timber Tina, she first got into timbersports while growing up with her siblings in Hayward, Wisconsin, which is also the home of the Lumberjack World Championships.
"It was quite a journey coming to Maine, the birthplace of logging in America," Scheer said. "It was all I'd ever known, so I thought, 'Everybody is going to get it.'"
Despite the bygone lumberjack era in the state, the show's spectacle has managed to draw a crowd every summer. During each performance, lumberjacks and lumberjills take turns pole climbing, log rolling, chopping, and axe throwing.
The group even hosts family lessons to get up close and personal with the logging tools to learn lumberjacking skills, like sawing, and other fun activities, such as log rolling.
Abigail Stevens, a performer and leader of Maine's next generation in timbersports, does it all for the crowd. She got her first taste of the sport in college.
"My friend grabbed me and said, 'Let's go try out for this team,' and I said, 'Ok,' and I immediately fell in love with the sport," Stevens said.
When she's not on stage, she helps coach the team that taught her: the University of Maine Woodsmen Team.
"I love watching the sport grow, and that's why I coach. I love getting more people into the sport, because it's really like a little community, a lumberjack family," Stevens explained.
Currently, the group is painting, chopping, and gearing up for a new summer season starting this weekend. After that, the group plans on taking a quick break until June 17.
"There's no greater joy, I think, than coming out on stage when you have people out there in the audience, who are from away mostly, and they are just here to have fun," Scheer said.