How did Finnish lumberjacks transport their tree logs through hundreds of miles of wilderness before there were tractors and good road infrastructure at their service?
Since numerous tree logs weighed tons and the subarctic Taiga forest was dense, using animals for transporting logs was just not an option. Instead, Finnish lumberjacks learned to become masters at riding their tree logs.
This traditional and skilled art that almost every Finnish lumberjack used to know became a form of entertainment and competitive sports like the lumberjacks rolling their logs under their feet.
Unfortunately, this traditional sport is on a steep decline. Nowadays there are hardly more than a few dozen people in Finland who can ride down the river managing their logs.
In this video, you can see two of the last remaining lumberjack artists, performing many kinds of tricks on top of their slippery rods in the middle of the river and ice-cold water:
