Basque Supermen

These guys have always fascinated me. Being a former competitive powerlifter, I can really appreciate the effort and dedication that they put into their beloved "rural sports."

Basque rural sports are rooted in traditional lifestyles, mostly farmer occupations of the Basque Country, in Northern Spain. Nowadays they have transformed themselves into sports based in strength and skill. Stone lifting and wood chopping are the most popular. Check out the Wood chopper in his training shed, pretty cool stuff.

http://albertoparedes.photoshelter.com/gallery/Basque-Supermen/G0000Yvj.cm8ObA0/

Don't get me started Chris I got timbersport magazines with lots on the Basque .
I worked with 3 Basque brothers when logging here in northern Manitoba since the early 1970's. Louie, Manuel and Antonio.
These guys were as wide as tall and I've never met tougher loggers.

I'll post some articles later......but have te take the family to the movie theater first.

HolmenTree said:

Don't get me started Chris I got timbersport magazines with lots on the Basque .
I worked with 3 Basque brothers when logging here in northern Manitoba since the early 1970's. Louie, Manuel and Tony.
These guys were as wide as tall and I've never met tougher loggers.

I'll post some articles later......but have te take the family to the movie theater first.

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Boy, I can't wait to see the articles. Thanks you so much. The Basques are an amazing culture and people with a real rich history.

Have a great time with the family at the movies.

This sounds like it might get interesting...

Interesting.

Now don't laugh guys it was a great movie as I have alot of estrogen in my household. We just saw the Cate Blanchett, Helena Bonham Carter movie of Cinderella.
It was actually very well done

Anyways I dug up some interesting old articles on the Basque society of Spain. You may remember them being labelled separatists in Spain. Well they are a distinct society in that country.
I'll just post a little of their lumberjack competitive nature as they have had organized chopping competitions for over 400 years now. Not just a simple speed chop of a block of wood, but endurance chopping for many hours straight and many "big hard" blocks of wood.
The picture of Ron Hartill will show up on the 2nd page, as Ron is a friend of mine who I competed with long ago. Ron's from B.C. and was 7 time lumberjack world champion. Ron chopped all those blocks non stop before him in that contest in Spain.
I reposted the last page upright in my next post.
I'll dig out some more tomorrow.

Here's the last page upright.

Very impressive story and photos, to the point of being humbling, even.
Incredible strength and endurance to speed chop hardwood for literally hours.

Willard, I hear ya buddy about the estrogen in the household, as I have a wife (of 27 years), two daughters, a dog and a cat (both females) ALL living in a small house. Thank goodness for my little gym/workshop downstairs, ha-ha! Its all good though and I too have seen MORE than my share of what would be called "chick flicks." Heck, for awhile there my youngest daughter would watch "Say Yes To The Dress" in the afternoons after I got home from work, and since our kitchen is right in view of the living room and I will usually get supper going, I could hear the program and see it as well. So, I've gotten to learn all kinds of things about wedding dresses, which I guess is a good thing, with having two unmarried young daughters at home, who will hopefully have their own husbands (and homes) someday

Thank you so much for posting the Basque articles and PLEASE post the rest.

Truly an amazing people. I remember as a kid and first hearing about them, but the media were portraying them all as terrorists, because they wanted to be known as their own people and some of the more extremists were not opposed to acts of violence. Even my brother in law who's family is from (and still lives) Spain, still hold the mountain Basque people in distaste.

The Basque are really a competitive group and even in their spare time, love to compete (and place bets) in "games" that mimic their work activities. Their stone lifting competitions are what I really loved at first and the wood chopping really blew me away when I also learned about that. Hell, anyone who can beat the Australians in wood chopping events has to be REALLY good, and remember, like Willard said, these are people who have been competing in wood chopping events for over 400 years!

Pretty cool that Ron Hartill is a friend of yours as well. I remember watching him compete in Lumberjack competitions here in the States and he was a fierce competitor. So you know first hand how tough these events can be.

Can't wait to read more of those Basque articles!

Here's a little taste of the Basque's rural sports;

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kgP_CQc01sY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Chris great thread you started here and the videos!
I looked high and low for the other articles I have on the Basques, but since moving to a new home last year I still have quite a bit of stuff to unpack yet.
Hopefully I can find more soon as I know of lots of other good reading that has never been archived to the internet.
Lots of videos on the net of these supermen.......75 year old Basque axe choppers still competitive in the endurance events.

There is a 400 lb axemen named David Foster from Tasmania whose website claims he's the greatest axemen ever in the world. But it's funny as I can't find any statistics where he won an event in Spain, even though he briefly mentions he competeted against the Basques. ......

Will report later.

It's all good bro, thanks for looking!

I too will have more to post about the Basques later.

I just found some articles on Ron Hartill where he talks about his experiences with the Basques.
I need daylight to take good photographs of the pages to post here. So will do tomorrow after I take my kids to meet the inlaws as it's spring break here.
There was a time I could just scan them on my printer and upload them onto TreeHouse but the site doesn't want to take them anymore in that format.

chris_girard said:

Truly an amazing people. I remember as a kid and first hearing about them, but the media were portraying them all as terrorists, because they wanted to be known as their own people and some of the more extremists were not opposed to acts of violence. Even my brother in law who's family is from (and still lives) Spain, still hold the mountain Basque people in distaste.

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With good reason. The Basque have killed hundreds of people and injured and kidnapped thousands for their cause. Often innocent Spaniards who had no connection to their cause.

Yup.
Just like with the IRA, I supported their cause but not the means they used.

I concur, Stig.

Here's some articles from the late 1980's of my old friend Ron Hartill who praises the respect he had for the Basques.......and U.S.A.

Great read Willard, what did you reckon on those poulans? What was the competition at the time and how did they compare?

It looks like too much bar for that saw!

La becasse said:

Great read Willard, what did you reckon on those poulans? What was the competition at the time and how did they compare?

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Mick at the time when Ron Hartill promoted those Poulans in the early years[approx 1975- 1980's] there wasn't alot of competition. Ron worked with Poulan as a spokesmen until about 1990 then he switched to Husqvarna.
In 1975 Poulan introduced the 4200 [68cc] and the 5200 [85cc] which are basically the same saw as the 5400 he is holding there in that 1982 advertisement picture. Very ergonomic, high power saw for the time. At these times the only competition for them was Husqvarna and a few of the Stihl pro saws.
These were the last true USA built pro saws manufactured right up until the mid 1980's and were a good durable powerhouse. The last pro top model was the 8500 introduced in 1984, not until 1986 when Stihl introduced the 85cc 064 it was out done for good.
Keep in mind the 4200, 5200, 5400 and 8500 were their best true pro models, everything else was consumer grade.

MasterBlaster said:

It looks like too much bar for that saw!

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Butch,actually that saw's displacement is 85cc and was a very strong running compact sized saw rated for up to 36" b/c. That saw weighed 16 lbs 8 ozs powerhead only which is comparable to the 066/660. But of course the Stihls weren't introduced until many years later.

Thanks, what the hell happened to the US saw industry? This may have been covered before but it seems odd to me that the Germans and Swedes have such a complete monopoly on pro saws.
Where did it all go wrong for Partner, Poulan etc?

La becasse said:

Thanks, what the hell happened to the US saw industry? This may have been covered before but it seems odd to me that the Germans and Swedes have such a complete monopoly on pro saws.
Where did it all go wrong for Partner, Poulan etc?

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When Robert Paxton Mc Culloch died in Feb. 1977 the U.S. saw industry basically died along with him as he was a top driving force entrepreneur in that field in the US.
Partner was a Swedish company , like Poulan and countless others were swallowed up by the Swedish Electrolux company.
Magnus can definately chip in with more, as I gotta run and do some errands.

I surfed for a couple of weeks in San Sebastien or Donostia as the Basques call it. The women were the best looking I have come across in terms of numbers. Literally, you could not walk down the street for 50m without seeing another stunner. I got a proper stiff neck.

The guys looked like absolute brutes. Necks as wide as their heads and as Willard first pointed out as wide as they were tall. I ofter wondered how they managed to father such beauties.

Thanks for posting up the articles, they were an interesting read.

Williard (or anyone else) do you recall what saw Paul Newman used in "Sometimes a Great Notion" when he cut the Union guy's desk in half? I seem to remember it being a big Poulan. The other thing I sorta remember is him starting it with the bar guard on!

My guess would be a McCullogh.