Cochrane Woodcarver Brian Widahl held on tight to his second-place title at the 24th annual Powell River Logger Sports Competition.

Just this past weekend (July 13 and 14), Widahl travelled to Powell River, British Columbia to take on the challenge of creating a freestyle design on one of many massive cedar logs offered at the event.

Widahl, shares this year's competition once again proved to be an amazing experience. "It was super hot and there was lots of great competition. I heard the judging was all within a few points for the first few places, so we were absolutely thrilled to get second."

The competition this year was pretty stiff, shares Widahl, as many of his competitors religiously travel to a number of competitions and gain experience by doing so. "It was definitely a tough challenge for us to compete against a handful of them." 

Adding to the toughness, an unexpected curveball was thrown at the start of the event when the carvers learned they would have fewer hours to create their finished masterpieces. "We ended up going six hours less than last year and only had 29 hours in total. The first day ended up being a bit of a struggle because we had a couple of different ideas on what we were going to do but you obviously don't really know what you can do until you are given the log you get. Once we determined which log we were being given we went to town making a few sketches, and that was when we determined we were going with a 'bear carving a carver' because it is unique."

Luck of the draw determines which log the carvers will be given, and lucky for Widahl, he had his eye on four and ended up with a fourth-place selection. "As soon as we started seeing logs coming, I had my eyes on four on of them that would work for one of my ideas and I was pretty fortunate to be able to pick one of the first four. They sponsor all the cedar and cedar is really nice to cut, the only catch is, the log you get. Some of them are big perfect logs, some are really narrow at the top, and quite often you can actually see core rot or some ring rot in the log. It can totally throw your game off on what you were doing if you are having to work against a rotten log."

Entering this year's competition with a couple of different ideas in his head, Widahl was thrilled when his concept of a bear carving a carver worked out. "Everything worked out awesome for us this year because you can be half a mile away and you can see a big bear holding a chainsaw; which is exactly what we wanted."

Between a busy work schedule and growing family, Widahl says he certainly felt more pressure this go around. "The pressure has been on for months in advance as I just tried to get to the day. I think finally on Sunday, about three hours before judging, I probably felt the calmest in the entire event."

Even though Widahl was thrilled to walk away with a 2,000 dollar cash prize, he says the experience alone is truly what it is all about. "It is a good opportunity to meet a lot of other carvers, gain more talent, see how they do things and learn different techniques...the list goes on. I think it's pretty crazy for me to have even won these past two years considering I have followed many of these guys for so long. Just to be able to have the opportunity to go and compete against them is huge for us." 

Thanks to the support and sponsorship from Elavation Safety Ltd, Widahl shares the experience and win is a huge confidence booster. "It has been a lot of hard work over the past few years even just studying proportion and animals and other stuff. This win is hugely rewarding."