Each week, Amy examines a small group of students in order to understand the individual Dartmouth experience as part of a whole. This week, Amy talks to Courtney Talmadge '09, a member of the Dartmouth woodsmen's team.
So until maybe two or three months ago, I had no idea Dartmouth had a woodsmen's team. And until a couple of minutes ago, I hadn't the foggiest idea what it entails to be a lumberjack or jill.
When I found out that my friend Courtney Talmadge '09 (who, I might add, always has perfect hair and a smile on her face) actually leads a double life as a lumberjill on the Cabin and Trail's woodsmen's team, I was more than faintly surprised.
I sat down with her in Collis today to find out what she's been up to.
"It's really unfortunate that it's so unpublicized," Courtney said of the team. "It's really fun to get outside, get dirty. It's a great group of nice, accepting, fun people."
"I was on an FSP last spring with Luke [Mann-O'Halloran] -- he's the men's captain -- and I started this fall ... It's something I won't have many opportunities to do after college," Courtney explained with a laugh.
The team is currently gearing up for its big spring Woodsmen's Weekend on April 24 and 25, which means that Courtney currently finds herself immersed in the team.
"Right now it's a rather large time commitment with the spring meet coming up," Courtney said.
She noted, however, that Dartmouth's woodsmen's team is not like other schools' teams.
"Some schools treat it as a varsity sport, and show up to meets in buses with hired coaches ... We don't have a coach -- we're completely student-led," she said. "We have alums involved in the team who advise us and help out with the spring meet."
Still, Dartmouth is distinguished because it was the original location of the first Woodsmen's Weekend 63 years ago.
"Because we were the first team to start it, every three years, Dartmouth hosts [the event]," Courtney said.
Courtney mentioned that this year is out of synch with the standard three-year rotation.
"It was held here two years ago. We're hosting it earlier than our normal rotation because of the one hundred year anniversary of the DOC," she said.
So what exactly does the woodsmen's team do at practice? I was curious what kind of events were available, and what events Courtney does herself.
"In practice, everyone does what they want. I've been learning every event just for the fun of it," Courtney said.
While events change from meet to meet, for the upcoming weekend, Courtney and her team are planning to participate in events including fly casts, singles canoeing, team crosscut saw, and something called pulp toss, which "simulates throwing pulp into the back of a truck in a neat pile," she explained.
Courtney added that she's most looking forward to her triples event, where she will be doing a triple horizontal chop.
I told Courtney about this week's Mirror theme about the environment. She laughed when I asked her how she felt the woodsmen fit in.
"Yeah, and we fell trees!" she joked.
However, Courtney did point out that she actually felt that woodsmen have more in common with environmental issues than it would first seem.
"We're very much surrounded by nature. And a lot of the trees we fell for practice are ones people don't want on their property anymore," she said. "I don't think our single woodsmen team is making a big dent in deforestation."
More importantly, though, Courtney said, is the history behind the team and its events.
"All our events -- bucking up wood, felling trees, saw -- have roots in actual activities that woodsmen and lumberjacks used to do," she said.
While I've never had the urge to pick up a saw in my life, talking to Courtney made me almost interested to try my hand. Or maybe I'll just leave it to her for now.
