It was Kendall Kunelius’ sophomore year in college. She was riding home on the bus from the dairy barn at the University of New Hampshire when her friend told her she was going to woodsmen’s practice that day and maybe Kendall could come with her?
“I said, ‘OK,’ and that was it,” Kunelius said. “I went that day, and I chopped and sawed and absolutely fell in love with it.”
Kunelius, 24, of Chester, N.H., is a lumberjill. Not a lumberjack, although she is married to a lumberjack, Billy Kunelius. The two compete together and separately; Kendall won the Stihl Timbersports national championship this summer and won two collegiate titles at the University of New Hampshire.
But more importantly to Kunelius, she is trying to empower women in the sport, which has traditionally been a male endeavor. To that end, she organized the first Stihl Timbersports lumberjill competition Sunday at Edmondson’s Farm in Coventry.
Many lumberjack events have female divisions, but there are few all-female competitions.