Pro loggers to compete at Valleyfest
Get out your hobnailed boots and best flannel shirt. Valleyfest has gone lumberjack.
Peggy Doering, the dynamo coordinator of the 17th annual Valleyfest, has landed an event on the pro logging circuit for the festival Sept. 22-24 in Spokane Valley’s Mirabeau Park.
Lumberjacks from Canada and the Northwest will square off in ax throwing, single-handed chopping, modified two-man hot-saw chopping, log rolling and obstacle saw bucking, in which contestants run up a pole with a chain saw and lop off hunks of log.
“It’s a track-and-field event you won’t believe,” Doering said from the festival’s office in the Valley Community Center. Doering said the Spokane Regional Sports Commission helped bring in the sanctioned American Logging Association event.
As always, Doering is looking for community assistance. She’d like to borrow a fat-tire forklift. How ‘bout a side-loading timber truck with the hydraulic arm? Either will do.
“I have the dump truck. I have the road grader. Now I just need the forklift,” she said.
A football-field sized lot between Mirabeau Park and the Pinecroft Business Park will become a temporary arena with bleachers and a public address system. The logging event is scheduled for Sept. 23.
An estimated 30,000 people annually flock to Valleyfest, which began in 1990.
Doering said its mission is to connect people with their community by introducing them to nonprofit organizations, businesses and neighbors – all gathered near the picturesque 10-acre park along the Spokane River.
Most booths host kid-friendly activities, and nearly all are interactive. Three stages feature a variety of bands and performers. The car show will be back. And there will be a juried art competition in addition to arts and crafts sales.
Valleyfest will kick off with a Friday evening parade down Sprague Avenue dedicated to area military families and encompassing 100 entries and more floats than ever. But it’s in dire need of marching bands.
“We need a band, even if it’s a kazoo band,” Doering joked. “It would be really fun if all trumpet players formed their own band, or accordion or tuba players.”
Valleyfest’s first nighttime parade last year attracted nearly 10,000 people, according to police.
There’s still time to enter the parade and the arts and crafts events, sign up for a booth or become a sponsor. Applications are available at www.valleyfest.org.
Contestants in the free Saturday morning three-mile fun run are being asked to wear silly costumes and to bring nonperishable food items to stock the Spokane Valley Food Bank.
Doering is looking for more fun-loving folks to help put on the celebration. Volunteers are in charge of parade barricades, helping with children’s activities such as pony rides and a petting zoo, putting up temporary fences, toting and loading items and cleaning up the park.
“I really need the strong men and women of the Valley,” Doering said.
“You can all work for a Valleyfest T-shirt, and we don’t give that hard of a job to do. You’ll see a lot of people you know, and it only takes a few hours out of your day.”