LOGGERS PLAY-DAY PIN

4.3 in diameter x 0.3 cm

Sorry, this is a long one. 

In 1998, I traveled across this country by car. I traveled with Daryl, and it took us about a month. We gave structure to our venture by investigating men and women who risk their lives for a living: coal miners in West Virginia; oil rig workers in Louisiana; loggers in Washington State. Daryl wrote, I took pictures. 

We rolled into Hoquiam and Aberdeen in Washington, sister towns hosting a Loggers Play-Day, an event that featured competitions based on logging skills. It took place in the local highschool stadium, capacity around 1000. Somehow, we worked our way onto the field, and I found myself able to photograph whatever I wanted. Everyone was quite gracious. 

There was an axe toss competition, a log chopping competition, stuff like that. It was pretty badass. Also, though, kind of weird, cause here were all these skilled men exhibiting their abilities, embarking in good-natured competition; yet the framework for the whole event was based on a vocation in peril, a casualty of the decimated American logging industry.

A 'Powder Monkey' is one of the badass motherfuckers who sets explosives a hundred feet up a tree to fell it from the halfway point down.