BARK PEELERS' EVENT THIS WEEKEND AT LUMBER MUSEUM

No area Independence Day holiday festival can match the Bark Peelers' Convention in variety and turnout.

Now in its 34th year at the Pa. Lumber Museum along Rt. 6 in central Potter County, the convention is scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, July 5- 6, opening at 10 am each day.

There are events for children and adults, as well as exhibits and attractions blending entertainment with hands-on education about timber harvesting and local history.

Bark Peelers Convention was established in consultation with local historians to re-create the summertime celebrations lumber camp workers held to mark another successful season in the woods.

Diaries and other records reveal that the lumberjacks traditionally tested their skills in tobacco spitting, frog racing, ax throwing, checkers, greased pole endurance and, for the more adventurous, "birling."

That's a competition that pits contestants on opposite ends of a huge log set afloat in the lumber mill pond, spinning the log with their feet to dislodge their opponents.

Winners of the convention's birling contest (Sunday, 2 pm) and the tobacco spitting competition (Saturday, 3:30 pm) can boast of being the "Pa. State Champions."

The greased pole contest (Saturday, 2:30 pm) is played out on huge log of white pine hanging horizontally a few feet over a sawdust pile. Contestants try to remain on the log as they pound away at each other with soft pillows.

For youngsters, the Bark Peelers Convention offers the frog jumping contest (Sunday, 11 am). There's also a fiddler's contest (Saturday, 4:15 pm).

Most people attend the convention to watch, relax and learn. Visitors can climb above the stationary Shay locomotive. They can watch wood craftsmen at work, stripping bark from freshly cut timber, carving, producing wooden shingles or whittling. A blacksmith demonstrates how horseshoes were made a century ago.

Entertainment includes performances by the popular jug band, Sadie Green Sales, and fascinating, colorful and informative interpretive storytelling and history lessons by Rich Pawling.

New events this year include amateur cross-cut saw competition, open to the public, Sunday at 1 pm.

Additional information on the Bark Peelers Convention is available by calling (814) 435-2652, or visiting the Lumber Museum website, lumbermuseum.org.