WOODLOTS
The Game of Logging

by Kara Lynn Dunn

A serious way to learn

PHOTOS BY BRIAN P. WHATTAM. Game of Logging instructor Bill Lindloff compares a proper helmet with one recovered crushed from an accident scene.

Bill Lindloff knows how to cut down trees—good for him. He also knows how to teach other people to cut down trees—good for them. Lindloff estimates he has taught proper forest safety techniques to thousands of people—1,300 in 2008 alone—as a Game of Logging instructor.

Soren Eriksson’s Game of Logging (GOL) is a training program developed by a Swedish logger in the 1960s to increase attention to safety and reduce injuries. The result has been lower injuries to professional loggers, maple producers who thin their sugar bushes to improve their sap production and landowners who cut firewood or manage their properties.

GOL meets OSHA requirements for logging operation employee training. Edward G. Wright, of W.J. Cox insurance associates, says GOL has indeed made loggers safer and lowered insurance claims.

“Over the past 10 years, we have seen reductions in logging-related accidents and we intuitively attribute the vast majority of the reduction to the Game of Logging training,” Wright says. “The number of reported injuries fell from 253 in 1995 to 47 in 2008, while the number of insured loggers remained stable (New York Lumbermen’s Insurance Trust Fund statistics).

“The Game of Logging is based on an extensive study of the type, frequency and causes of logging-related accidents. For example, researchers learned that most fatalities occur within 10 feet of the tree stump, so the training includes planning an escape path,” Wright says.

A serious game

The GOL has influenced the quality of logging and woods stewardship and has grown into a program that attracts landowners, maple producers, conservationists, firefighters and city parks employees.

Click here to view "REPORTED LOGGING INJURIES VS. PAYROLL 1994 - 2008"

Lindloff’s professional but personable manner puts GOL participants at ease. He tells them the group training allows everyone to learn from each other’s efforts, and says, “When I started the Game of Logging, I had three safety violations before I even put the saw into the wood. This is where you learn how to handle a saw properly.”

GOL Level 1 focuses on basic chain saw safety techniques-everything from safety equipment to how the saw works, how to plan a tree felling based on lean and other factors, notching and wedging. Each participant cuts at least one tree.

Just under Winnie Godfrey’s left hand on her saw is a reminder to wrap her “thumb under” the handle. GOL participants lose points for not using proper grip.

“Level 2 teaches you how to maintain your saw to reduce downtime,” Lindloff says. “You learn to file your chain, tune your carburetor, release the pressure on springpoles and more on how to properly fell a tree.”

Level 2 also includes limbing and bucking, and each participant fells at least one tree.

Level 3 addresses tree height, segment calculations, techniques to use with difficult trees, cutting against a tree’s natural lean and limbing and bucking. Each participant cuts at least one tree.

Level 4 focuses on maximizing a harvesting plan for safety and productivity and planning to extract trees by skidder or forwarder. Participants work at professional logging speed.

The serious “game” combines education with variety, repetition, hands-on practice and a bit of competitive spirit. For example, Level 1 participants are scored on such tasks as identifying the reactive forces of a chain saw, angling and aligning cuts and how close to a target they fell a tree. Winners may earn a wedge, helmet or other gear.

GOL participants can qualify for regional and national competitions. Successful completion of Level 4 is required to compete in the professional division.

GOL class participants practice their grip on the saw.

Lindloff finished second—missing first by just one point—in his first GOL regional competition in 1994 at the Woodsmen’s Field Days in Boonville, N.Y. A year later, he finished third in the U.S. national competition.

In 2000, after being selected by GOL founder Soren Eriksson to compete for a spot, Lindloff went to Norway on the first-ever three-man U.S. team competing in the World Logging Championship. In 2002, he traveled with the team to Scotland, and in 2004 earned a Silver Medal in the tree felling competition with 110 competitors. He missed Gold by just a half-millimeter.

Learn to be safe and productive

Lindloff started his own training organization, Bill Lindloff’s PRO-Cuts, in 1998, and now teaches GOL across New York state from Long Island to the Thousand Islands to Niagara Falls. His company is one of 16 GOL training organizations in 30 states.

“This training uses a variety of talk, tasks and trees to help people develop safe and efficient felling plans and cutting skills. You learn how to make a tree go where you want it to go,” Lindloff says. “The goal is to work in the woods effectively and efficiently, without getting busted up or worn out.

“There are 37 different ways to cut a tree down, but they all start with the basics of being safe,” Lindloff says. “Loggers can be stubborn. This training challenges them, and the occasional chain saw users, to use proper techniques and to practice them.”

To reinforce the value of properly handling a chain saw, Lindloff shares photos of the scenes of fatalities caused by carelessness and, professionals and landowners who bear the scars of mishaps.

“Employers are interested in lowering insurance premiums by sending employees to the Game of Logging, and safer is often more productive and less expensive for professional loggers,” Lindloff notes.

Logging companies whose workers complete Level 4 certification (and meet some additional requirements) receive a 10 percent reduction in their insurance premiums through W.J. Cox Associates.

Lindloff notes that violations of OSHA regulations can cost employers stiff fines that start at $1,500.

Lindloff says those who are properly trained to maintain and handle their saws can cut more hours with less fatigue, less backache, and more wood cut at the end of the day.

GOL participants watch closely as Bill Lindloff demonstrates how to sharpen a saw chain.

Knowing how equipment works is a key piece of the training. Lindloff shows participants the various angles and aspects of a saw chain tooth and each participant must be able to identify the push, pull, attack and kick areas of the chain.

“You have to keep your chain sharp. A dull chain means less fuel efficiency and more stress on the motor, and you are not getting any work done. Having a sharp chain can make a difference all day long. You do more work in less time, and you come out of the woods with everything you went in with,” Lindloff says.

He does not hesitate to provide one of his saws to a participant whose chain is not sharp enough. Dolmar, the German company that made the first portable gas-powered chain saw in 1927, is the current sponsor of the Game of Logging and makes the type of saw that Lindloff uses.

Lindloff says on average a professional logger’s saw will last two to four years; the average homeowner may use one for 10 years with proper maintenance.

Who plays the Game of Logging?

Levels 1 and 2 have the greatest number of participants, often a mix of landowners and professional woods workers.

A mid-July 2009 training program at Irene “Winnie” Godfrey’s woods in northern New York on the heavily forested Tug Hill Plateau brought several participants, most of whom saw a GOL notice in the New York Forest Owners Association newsletter.

Professional loggers came to “learn more pointers” and update their certification. One landowner came to learn how to safely clean up treetops left by loggers on his land. Others cut and sell firewood.

Another homeowner wanted a solution to bring down a problem tree that split about 60 feet up in his yard. Lindloff says, “I told him to hire a professional, because some trees require professional skill.”

The only woman in the course that day, Grace Buchanan, admitted to having learned some unsafe woods skills in her youth—even cutting a tree while standing on a ladder.

“I want to learn the proper techniques to be safe in the woods and to be able to harvest our 19 acres of woods in the Haudenosaunee tradition that considers how the next seven generations will be affected by what we do today,” she said.

Godfrey, no stranger to a chain saw, is a GOL Level 3 graduate, Trained Logger Certified and a Cornell Cooperative Extension-trained Master Forest Owner and Naturalist who has consulted with forest owners for six years. She manages her own 38 acres for firewood, sawtimber, veneer and wildlife.

“Novice woodlot owners are often not aware of the possibilities their woods hold, and it is my belief that, with our current economic disaster, more and more people will be high-grading, or Diameter Limit Cutting, their woods and/or installing woodstoves. As a result, although they are renewable, recyclable, reusable, natural, nontoxic and even farmable, American forests are in grave jeopardy from this style of harvesting,” she says.

“I am primarily concerned with woodlot owner outreach to encourage sustainable woodlot management. Trees are like any other plant you would grow in a garden, only much larger and slower to reach maturity, and like any garden, a forest must be properly weeded occasionally,” Godfrey says.

“Proper culling maintains the health and vigor of the forest, increases the growth rate of the trees, and shortens the time between harvests,” she adds.

The practical Lindloff says, “It takes a lot more work to fix a bad cut than if you just do it right the first time.”

If a tree falls in the forest ...

New York State Extension Forester Peter J. Smallidge of Cornell University likes to ask: If a tree falls in the forest when you cut it, do you know which direction it will fall?

“You can often tell by the answer if someone is a Game of Logging graduate,” Smallidge says. “The training helps people evaluate their ability versus a tree to know if they can cut it down without hanging it up with the associated headaches, risks and hazards.”

Smallidge, who is also director of Cornell’s Arnot Teaching and Research Forest, often hosts the Game of Logging. The training is mandatory for those working at Arnot.

“Most forest owners and other chain saw users have never had a safety course, much less a course in directional felling that provides safety and productivity training and small-class learning that allows for individual attention by a certified instructor,” he says. “Learning saw sharpening and maintenance skills alone more than pays for the cost of the course,” says Smallidge, a Level 3 GOL graduate.

“A thorough working knowledge of directional felling is essential for safe and productive work in the woods. I use the skills in management and research with forest owners across New York state,” he says.

Ron Pederson, an Arnot GOL graduate, says, “The Game of Logging should be required at a young age, like driver training or hunter safety for a big game license.”

Maple producer Chuck Winship says, “At Sugarbush Hollow, we will not let anyone use a chain saw without first taking the Game of Logging course. We do extensive timber stand improvement even among our tubing systems. The course provides the right safety procedures, which enables us to have the necessary confidence and skills in handling the most dangerous tool invented by mankind.”

Mike Farrell, director of the Cornell Uihlein Maple Forest near Lake Placid, N.Y., says, “Although I was trained as a forester, my chain saw skills were very limited before taking Game of Logging. I used to just mark trees to be cut and let someone else do the felling. I now have the confidence and skills to do the actual cutting when implementing thinning operations here.”

Sugarwood Hill forest owner Steven Rider participated in the GOL in fall 2008 and was so impressed he rallied the Lewis County (N.Y.) Maple Producers Association to sponsor a spring 2009 course.

“Hands-on learning working alongside Bill Lindloff, who is not afraid to stand right next to you while you are cutting, is a great way to learn,” Rider says, “and you learn what you need to do to be effective in your woods. Bill teaches the causes and effects of the saw and the thought process and mechanics of felling a tree. He shows you the details of body posture, hand grip and other techniques for properly and safely operating your saw.”

Rider, when not deployed with the U.S. Army, manages 63 acres of woods for firewood and maple production.

“My trees are responding to the thinning so that the crowns of the crop trees can fill out and take advantage of the empty spaces. I would like to see the maple association offer the Game of Logging on an annual or biannual basis. The more safety training we can offer, the better we will all be, and the secondary benefit of learning to manage our woods efficiently and effectively moves us all in the right direction.”

Find Game of Logging courses and forest management information online at www.gameoflogging.com and www.forestconnect.info.

The author is a freelance writer with a 100-acre farm and woodlot in Mannsville, N.Y. Comment or question? Visit www.farmingforumsite.com and join in the discussions.