‘They can ask anything’: Women sharpen their chainsaw skills, leave empowered

You heard them first: the groan and growl of chainsaws operated by amateurs, judging by the way it took them a few tries to get the machine going. 

If you looked in the direction of the noise, you would see a dozen bright-orange helmeted heads in the woods adjacent to the Conservation Center. All of them, save one, are women.

Through their Women in the Woods collaboration, the NH Timberland Owners Association, the Society for the Protection of NH Forests and UNH Cooperative Extension provide outdoors classes taught by women, for women. The Chainsaw Safety & Maintenance course on June 4 an 5 was a hit — it sold out within hours of being advertised.

“These women want to be more involved in their land and just don’t have the background — they didn’t grow up that way,” said Wendy Weisiger, the Society’s managing forester. Women in the Woods aims to fill that knowledge gap.

Weisiger is used to being the minority: she has spent her entire career surrounded by male foresters. At first, she was skeptical about the need for women-centered forestry programming — until she began teaching it.

“I’ve noticed that when I teach co-ed classes, sometimes men just have already learned things growing up, and they don’t realize that they know more than the women taking the class,” she said.

She gave a hypothetical scenario: a woman in a co-ed course asks the instructor where she can find the choke on her chainsaw. A well-meaning male student next to her answers instead, which gives the woman the impression that she’s behind everyone else.

When something like that happens, “the women start to say less in those classes,” Weisiger said.

To counter that, the Women in the Woods programming welcomes all questions, no matter how basic.

“We’re trying to create an environment where [women] feel equal and comfortable and like they can ask anything,” Weisiger said.

It’s working: retired nurse turned tree farmer Colleen O’Neill felt especially at ease surrounded by female peers. 

“The women are very collaborative and supportive, and it’s not to say that you couldn’t find that with men, but I just feel like it’s a very open environment to ask any question you want without feeling silly,” she said, her hands full of circular cross-sections of the log she just cut — souvenirs that she took home to her garden.

Weisiger points to a larger trend of land ownership shifting toward women, but their stewardship education lagging behind.

“Traditionally, they’ve never been included in making decisions on their land,” she said. “It’s just this social norm that we’ve had for generations.”

So, the three organizations aim to empower women with an assortment of introductory classes, like trail maintenance, map and compass skills and tree and mushroom identification. The chainsaw course happens twice a year. The demand is so high that they could hold it every month, said Cheri Birch, the Timberland Owners Association program director, but they’re limited by the number of women who can lead it.

Michael Gagnon, a forestry field specialist from UNH Cooperative Extension, is the only male instructor for the chainsaw course. 

“Mike is a unique person in that he is really aware of his presence and thoughtful of it,” Weisiger said of her co-instructor. “The fact that he’s not standing up next to me is on purpose.”

Indeed, Gagnon stayed seated while Weisiger spoke to the classroom full of women about safety gear before they took to the forest. It seems that apart from mastering the technique, the hardest part of chainsaw use for these students is finding attire that fits.

Standing five feet tall, Weisiger knows the sizing struggle all too well. For example, chainsaw safety gloves at Bass Pro Shops only come in men’s sizes. In fact, the only women’s gloves that Weisiger could find in the whole store were gardening gloves, so she had to turn to Harbor Freight’s selection. 

It’s “super annoying,” she said, but more than that, it’s dangerous. Adjusting your too-big gloves or tripping over your too-big boots while you’re operating a chainsaw could be catastrophic.

Armed with their notebooks before their chainsaws, some of the women jotted down Weisiger’s brand recommendations. They passed chaps around the table, feeling the layers of nylon with their fingertips.

All the while, Weisiger fired off more safety tips: clasp hair behind the head, remove dangling jewelry, take out earrings so that ear protection fits comfortably. During a chainsaw outing in the forest, have a whistle and first aid on your person — pads and tampons work like a charm to stop bleeding. In case a fallen tree traps you, share your location with a trustworthy person, and make sure they will check on you at a predetermined time. If you might encounter “creepy people in the woods,” as Weiseger put it, reverse-park your car and leave your keys inside so that you can make a quick escape if needed.

“It offers a totally different perspective on things,” student Abby Rummo said. “Women have a lot of understanding for experiences that other women go through.”

Rummo works for Moose Mountains Regional Greenways, where she shares stewardship responsibilities. With her takeaways from the Woman in the Woods course, she hopes to carry out chores like cutting wood without relying on others.

“I would like to be able to handle those things more on-demand, with less outsourcing,” she said. 

Likewise, O’Neill looks forward to maintaining her tree farm’s grounds on her own.

“Now, when a tree falls along the trail, instead of calling someone, I’ll potentially be able to remove that tree myself,” she said.

Weisiger loves to see the transformation in her students across the two-day course. Some students come in shaking with nerves on Thursday morning and leave on Friday afternoon with newfound confidence, she said. She recalled feeling similar anxiety as a 25-year-old woman completing a professional logger certification program in a class of only men.

“That’s the best feeling: knowing that you’ve given someone a power to use moving forward,” she said.