Loggerodeo

The carving lot can be heard from blocks away before it comes into view. On the morning of July 1, 2026, the Skagit Valley Herald counted sixteen chainsaws running at once in a fenced-off lot at State and Murdock streets in downtown Sedro-Woolley. Carvers were working down thick redwood and cedar logs, and the air was heavy with sawdust. A horse, a knight, a buffalo and a Statue of Liberty were taking shape that first day. Around the edge of the lot the carvers set out work made elsewhere, for viewing and for sale, and spectators walked the perimeter while the saws ran inside.

This is the Loggerodeo, Sedro-Woolley’s Fourth of July celebration, which in 2026 ran July 1 through 4. Loggerodeo Inc., which puts it on, calls it the longest running Fourth of July celebration in Washington State and calls the carving contest the longest running international, invitation-only chainsaw carving competition. It also calls the town the Chainsaw Carving Capitol of Washington State and the Pacific Northwest. During the celebration the organizers can be found at the carving stage at Murdock and West State. Their office on Murdock Street is not open to the public.

Master carves and quick carves

The 2026 championship was the 27th. For the master carve, each carver starts with a piece of cedar or redwood about eight feet by three. Over the days of the show the carver has about 21 hours to finish it, working from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. with two breaks, one for lunch and one for the Quick Carve. In the Quick Carve, carvers go head to head for one hour and fifteen minutes and may finish up to two pieces. The pieces are brought to the stage and auctioned at 5 p.m. each day, or at 3:15 on the last day. Bidder numbers come from the right of the stage, where Loggerodeo apparel is sold. George Kenny, the carving coordinator, is also the auctioneer. At the end of the show an award goes to the carver whose quick carves brought the most money.

The master carvings are judged on the last day, three separate ways:

• The carvers walk the lot and vote for best in show among themselves.
• The public votes for People’s Choice until 1 p.m.
• A panel of judges who do not know either result scores each piece on artistic impact, design, material use, difficulty and craftsmanship, and ranks the work down to fifth place.

In 2026 the carvers came from Argentina, Canada, Oregon, Idaho, Wisconsin, Iowa and California, as well as Washington. “The Sedro-Woolley Carving Championship is one of the top events anywhere,” Kenny said in the Loggerodeo program. “The last few years I’ve had world-class carvers contacting me wanting to come who’ve never participated here before because they want to compete against the best of the best.” Another carver, Denny Henson, said there: “This is a prestigious show.”

The 2026 results:

• First: Brandon Wilson, eagles with a nest. He also took Carver’s Choice.
• Second: Jeff Coss, a dragon.
• Third: Chris Foltz, Ghost Rider.
• Fourth: Ryan Villiers, a Sasquatch on skis.
• Fifth: Bob King, a carving for America’s 250th anniversary. It also won People’s Choice.
• Sixth: Alex Pricob, cougars.

King has history here. His fourth-place carving from the 2014 competition was bought by the Loggerodeo and given to the town of Oso as a memorial for the mudslide. Steve Backus of Clinton, another carver on the 2026 roster, has competed since the first chainsaw carving competition, held at the Puyallup Fairgrounds in 1981. In 2024 he became the first to receive the Loggerodeo legacy award. “It would be fair to say that Sedro-Woolley is the chainsaw carving capitol of Washington State!” he says in his roster biography. Nick Bielby of Port Angeles put it another way: “Some people see a log laying on the ground. I see a bear or dragon.”

Four days on Metcalf, Ferry and Township

The Kiddie Parade opens the festivities. In 2026 it gathered on July 1 at Lemley Funeral Chapel. It is for children 12 and under, and every entry moves by pedal or battery. Engines and livestock are not allowed. The categories are decorated bicycle, fairy tale, logger/farmer, patriotic, miscellaneous, and groups of six or more, with judging at 5:15 p.m. July 1 is also the day judges go around town to score patriotic decorations on houses and businesses. House entries must be visible from the street.

On July 3 at noon the Junior Logging Exposition is held at the logging rodeo grounds next to Janicki Fields. In 2026 it ran for the third year. Wayne Ramsey, its master of ceremonies, was asked by the Loggerodeo committee to organize a log show. “I decided rather than have an adult show with professionals, we should have a family friendly Junior log show,” he wrote. The show is open to graduating eighth graders through graduating seniors, and no one needs prior skill because competitors are trained before they start. Boys and girls compete separately, except in Jack and Jill crosscutting. The 2026 program had seven events: single bucking saw, double bucking saw, Jack and Jill bucking saw, axe throwing, match split, choker relay and pole climb. “I hope to have it be almost like a mini reunion for the people I’ve trained through the years on high school logging rodeo teams,” Ramsey wrote. Spectators are advised to bring a chair and something for shade.

The same two days, July 3 and 4, a rodeo runs at the grounds at Highway 20 and Polte Road. It has its own board of directors and operates apart from the Loggerodeo, though the two work together. The photographer Andy Porter, writing in 2015, described bucking broncos, barrel riding and Rodeo Queens.

The Fourth begins with the beard and mullet contest at Hammer Heritage Square, at the corner of Metcalf and Ferry. The contest looks for the most patriotically decorated beards. Organizers ask for “some thought, color, time” and want each beard to “show how you feel about your independence.” The judges are drawn from the Sedro-Woolley community, and in 2026 there were mullet contestants in both adult and minor divisions.

The Grand Parade starts at 11 a.m. sharp and lasts about two hours. It lines up at 3rd and Bennett, turns left on State, right on Metcalf, right on Ferry and right on Township, and ends at Township and State. Every road on the route closes. Organizers say spots along the way fill fast. The parade averages more than 100 entries, by the organizers’ count, and SkagitTalk put the 2019 parade at 130 to 140. Entries include:

• decorated floats
• old John Deere tractors from the Cascade 2 Cylinder Club
• horses and antique cars
• fire trucks and log trucks
• marching bands
• the Nile Shriners

Nothing may be thrown from a moving vehicle. Entries handing out candy send someone on foot to set it at spectators’ feet. In 2026, Janicki Industries took first among floats, Pacific Rim Tone Woods first among log trucks, the Cascade Two Cylinder Club first among antique tractors and fire trucks, and the Skagit Valley High School Marching Band first among bands.

On the evening of July 4, 2026, the Troy Fair Band played the street dance on Woodworth Street between Metcalf and Murdock. Fireworks start at dusk. The organizers’ fireworks page names Riverside Park in one line and Riverfront Park in the next. It says the park has room for parking and an open view, and sits next to the carnival, which stays open until midnight after the show. The event map also lists arts, crafts and food vendors and displays by the Sedro-Woolley museum.

A painted log on the Skagit

The Log Drive, as the organizers tell it, was first held in 1940. It lasted until around the late 1990s and was revived in 2023. Under the old rules, at 5 a.m. on July 2 a red, white and blue log, eight feet long and fourteen inches through, was dropped into the Skagit River at the Marblemount bridge. Handlers could pull it from log jams and push it back into the current, but could not help it downstream. Ticket buyers guessed how long it would take to float to the Clear Lake bridge on Highway 9, and the winning time was announced at the Grand Parade.

The organizers keep a table of past times:

• 1948: 11 hours, 7 minutes, 9 seconds.
• 1958: just over 19 hours, the slowest on the list.
• 1967: 10 hours, 39 minutes, 11 seconds, the fastest.
• 1989: the last time before a 2021 test run.
• 2023: 15 hours, 29 minutes, 54 seconds.

The guessing has since been dropped. The event is now a raffle run by the Sedro-Woolley Lions Club. In 2023 it raised $2,033.63 for Seattle Children’s Hospital. In 2024 it raised $1,655.25 for the Childhood Cancer Treatment Fund and Camp Korey, and each year a winner donated the winnings to the same cause.

Microwaves, a still and a horse named Ned

According to the Sedro-Woolley Chamber of Commerce, as quoted on a Country Store events page, the town staged its first Fourth of July celebration in 1886, making it the oldest continuous celebration in the state. In 2007 the Skagit Valley Herald called it the state’s oldest “by many accounts.” SkagitTalk went further in 2019 and called it the longest running Independence Day celebration in America.

The 2007 event was billed as the 73rd annual Loggerodeo. That year’s schedule included a Firefighters’ Muster, a Life Flight fly-in, a bluegrass jamboree, a church service in Hammer Heritage Square, a beard contest at the museum, and fireworks on Fruitdale Road east of town. With the 75th anniversary approaching, vice president JB Bryson said organizers wanted to bring back the flavor of festivals long ago. “Everybody started going to microwaves and cell phones and so did Loggerodeo, without even thinking about it,” he told the paper. The street dance returned that year after a one-year absence. Dealers were limited to three vehicles each in the parade.

Janicki Logging and the Sedro-Woolley Museum also built a float in 2007, the first in a long while. Bryson said the last Loggerodeo float had been built sometime in the late 1980s or early 1990s. The new float showed an old logging camp, with an outhouse on the back, a rubber chicken, an alcohol still and a blanket made from a horse named Ned. Museum president Carolyn Freeman said the still was authentic: crews cutting the pass for Highway 20 in the early 1970s had come across a few.

The museum had been run by volunteers since the early 1990s, when organizers got a 25-year lease from the city on the dilapidated Murdock Mall building. “We’ve probably got one of every kind of chainsaw ever made,” Freeman said. In a small glass case on the wall it kept sixteen bullets taken from the hide of Tusko, a circus elephant that Sedro-Woolley citizens shot at in 1922. According to accounts, Tusko broke his chains, went east on Ferry Street and north toward Dukes Hill, then west to the Garden of Eden neighborhood, where he was surrounded and returned to the circus. When he died at Woodland Park Zoo in 1936, the zoo veterinarian, Gus Knudson, removed the bullets. Decades later a man found them at a Seattle garage sale with Knudson’s note. Another case held two Native American baskets given in the 1880s to Dr. Georgiana Batey, Skagit County’s first formally trained doctor, for delivering babies.

The organization changed hands in 2026. Dottie Chandler, president since 2016 and a board member before that, stepped down as of July 31, and the board elected Dale Irish president for 2027.

Ned, according to the museum, was so loved by his owners that when he died in the early 1900s they skinned him, tanned the hide and made it into a blanket. “Back then, nothing went to waste,” Freeman said.