If you asked local resident Joel Hansen what he was doing in Campbell River on June 29 to July 3, he may have scared you by explaining that a chainsaw was involved.
Hansen placed first in the amateur category at the Campbell River Shoreline Carving competition for his The Great Escape carving of two baby sea turtles breaking out of their eggs, and other top honours.
"I look forward to this event every year," Hansen, who's participated since 2008, said. "I enjoy spending time with the other carvers, learning from them, just hanging out with them. It's kind of a strange crowd, the chainsaw carvers' fraternity, and there are lots of diverse personalities, which makes it fun."
Hansen was inspired to carve the baby turtles making a break for freedom by his wife, who had the opportunity to release baby turtles into the water during a business trip to Mexico.
"She came back from this experience so excited about these turtles that I decided to use her descriptions of this event as the inspiration for my carving," he said. "She told me that all the turtles heading from the beach to the sea looked like a great escape, which is what I eventually named my carving."
A scenic carpenter for the film industry by trade, Hansen first got into chainsaw carving because he was looking for something new.
"After a number of years I had become kind of bored with just building regular scenery," Hansen said. "Much of the stuff
carved on film sets are made from foam and painted to look like stone or wood, or whatever they are representing."
Hansen met Max Chickite, a fellow colleague and the founder of the Campbell River event, who encouraged him to participate in the competition.
"I saw what he and the other sculptors were able to do with their chainsaws and I thought that it looked like something I wanted to try," he added.
The first chainsaw experience Hansen had was with foam.
"So the very first thing I ever carved was a piece of foam, about the size of a garbage pail, that was painted to look like a rock," Hansen said. "And even though the end result of my first carving kind of looked like a big potato, I was hooked on chainsaw carving from that moment on."
But, it was a challenging transition to carving wood, as Hansen said he found it more physically demanding.
"Carving something from a 10 ft. tall, 4 ft. wide piece of Douglas fir is incredibly hard work," he said. "Running a chainsaw for eight to 10 hours a day for five days is so physically exhausting, but I love the satisfaction of seeing that hard work pay off, of seeing something take shape."
The event started at 7 a.m. on Wednesday and every following morning, and carvers had until 7 p.m. each day to carve. Judging began on Sunday morning. Twenty-eight other carvers attended the event. Professionals came as far as Japan and Australia, all over Canada and the U.S.
The Great Escape turtles warranted him first place in his category, second place in the people's choice (voted by spectators), and he received the highest honour of the event: carver's choice (voted by fellow competitors). Hansen was the first amateur to ever receive this award.
"The event also has a raffle for the public with the winner having the pick of the park, the right to pick any of the contestants carvings, and this year's winner chose my carving," Hansen said.
The competition is also an opportunity to spend time with his family too.
"The event is very family friendly and in the past number of years my father, who lives in Ontario, has been coming out
To see more of Hansen's work visit www.crshorelin earts.ca.
He noted, "I am not any sort of sensitive artist, I am just a guy who loves running a chainsaw, making sawdust and sometimes surprising myself with the results."
