The 2023 Central Oregon Sportsmen’s Show is under way at the Deschutes County Fair & Expo Center.
There’s some new entertainment this year that fits right in with this region’s long history with logging and forestry work.
At one time there were a half-million lumberjacks across the country who used their skill and athletic abilities to do the dangerous work of falling trees and preparing them for domestic use.
RELATED: Little Did I Know: Prineville’s timber boom
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Lumberjack competitions include crosscut sawing, axe throwing, underhand chopping, races against machines and log rolling.
“We are kind of like an old Vaudeville show. A lot of slapstick. Tons of dad humor. We just have a great time,” said Lee LeCaptain, Paul Bunyan Lumberjack Show owner. “People can relate to it because it’s home spun.”
The Paul Bunyan Lumberjack Show is performed an average of 65 times a year across the country and overseas.
“It harkens back to an era when this land, the Cascades and the Coast Range, was timber country,” said Trey Carskadon, O’Loughlin Trade Shows marketing director.
This year’s Central Oregon Sportsman’s Show includes the always popular kids fishing, hundreds of outdoor products and exhibits, hunting and fishing seminars, and acres of RVs and boats for the season ahead.
The show runs through Sunday.
