The first strike of the axe into the log is critical. “It’s 100 per cent important,” agrees Andrea Hand, of Kaslo, B.C. “It tells you everything about the log.”

And it’s also the point at which the athlete’s brain clicks into overdrive, she explains. It’s the brain which analyzes that initial blow, including the reaction of the wood fibre to it, and instantly relays to the athlete where the next and subsequent axe blows should be directed.

The athlete’s co-ordination is tested further during the event by having to turn around on the log to complete the act of severing it.

It’s called the underhand chop event in the highly competitive world of top flight professional loggers’ sports. It’s one of Hand’s specialty disciplines. And she’s become rather good at it.

Last September at the Stihl Timbersports women’s championships in London, Ontario, Hand established a new world record and standard for women in the underhand chop event of 21.65 seconds. That’s all the time it took her axe to complete the cut through an 11-inch diameter cottonwood log about 26 inches long.

Hand was also recognized at the London logger’s sports meet as Canada’s women’s champion for 2025 in the professional category. She also regularly competes at the professional level in other logger’s sports including the standing block chop, single buck and stock saw events (a 16-inch diameter white spruce log is typically used in competitive sawing events in Canada).

The 40-year-old athlete says she had no idea before the Stihl Timbersports event she was on the cusp of setting a world record. “No, I didn’t. I think that you approach every event with a positive attitude, but you can’t take anything for granted. A lot of things have to come together.”

Hand returned home after her triumph in Ontario. She needed to pick up on her busy life there as a working mother of two. Hand was born and raised in Kaslo, a small community scenically huddled on an alluvial fan jutting into Kootenay Lake, in southeastern British Columbia. She left Kaslo only to later return to her small town with its signature lake and mountains. Kaslo has a silver mining heritage but also has a logging industry culture.

“I was never directly employed in the forest industry,” recalls Hand. But she must have been influenced by osmosis. Her father was a professional faller and she has relatives involved in both the log harvesting and custom sawmilling sectors. “Forestry is a way of life in the area,” she explains.

Anyone doubting that ought to be around for Kaslo’s own logger’s sports show on the May long weekend. It’s been a fixture on the calendar for 52 years. The village with a normal population of around 1,000 squeezes in 2,000 for the logger’s sports weekend, says Hand.

Kaslo folk are quick to take a good idea to heart. That helps explain why the community rallied around a group of volunteers in town, including Hand, who  saw the benefits from establishing a fitness centre in the community. The group selected a co-operative model for the fitness centre, although none of them had any practical experience in how to go about establishing and running one, recalls Hand. The group, undaunted, pressed ahead.

Now, about five years on, the Kaslo Community Fitness Co-op, is a reality and recently hired its first staff member. Hand says the co-op has evolved into more than a place to improve physical fitness: it benefits both brain and bicep. Townsfolk can go there to socialize while improving their fitness levels at their own speed in a comfortable setting. “It’s used by people from every walk of life,” she says.  And all ages. The Kaslo area is home to a significant senior population which has become enthusiastic users of the community’s new health and social centre, adds Hand.

But her world was put on hold in 2022. Hand sustained horrific injuries from a snowmobile accident. They included a broken hip, femur and tail bone. As a trained paramedic, she understood the severity of her injuries. But the accident didn’t sever her sense of humour:  “There were two major arteries I somehow managed to miss.” Or her determination. Hand used her brain to help heal her broken body. “I’m too stubborn a person to sit still, “ she declares. “I was determined to get back to where I had been before the accident if not better. “ And she did.

“The accident occurred in April 2022 in Meadow Mountains (north of Kaslo) and I was back riding in December and have been ever since.” Her performance in the London loggers’ sports well illustrates her athletic improvement.

Life in Kaslo acts like a restorative bridge between Hand’s competitive one in loggers’ sports. “It’s a very expensive sport at the professional level,” she explains. Take axes, the tools of her trade. They are not the kind of implements found in the local hardware store. They are hand-forged and ground by highly skilled craftsmen to match the specific needs of each athlete for each competitive circumstance. “Every athlete has at least 10 axes, for example, and that ‘s at the low end,” says Hand. “Each axe costs between $700 and $900.”

Hand has her 2026 loggers’ sports schedule planned out. Rather than sitting on the laurels of the world’s best underhand chop time, Hand is out to better it. “I only started at this in in 2017 and there were two years off for Covid,” she recalls. She plans to compete in loggers’ sports events in Canada and the United States, across the Atlantic in Paris, and across the world in Australia during 2026.

But whatever happens in those distant places, there’s always Kaslo back home.