MADISON, Wisc. — When competitors in the ESPN Great Outdoor Games come to Madison, Wisc., for the pole climbing and log rolling competition, it will be a return to land where many of those events began.

Wisconsin has a history of logging, where the tall white pines from the northern counties became ship masts, and red pine, aspen, oak and maple have been used for pulp, paper, housing and many fine wooden products.

Wisconsin's logging history is both gritty and romantic. Commonly called "the cutover," virtually all of the state's virgin timber stands were culled, leaving a historically impressive, and long lived, swath of stumps and bare land.

At the same time, the cutover was a period of intense growth and prosperity in northern Wisconsin, providing the foundation for many of today's towns, farms, railroads and industries. Logging here is a story of industry and the land, carried out by a cast of hearty characters.

ESPN's record books speak volumes about Wisconsin's logging legacy. Look at the entries for log rolling and boom running, where you'll find that the majority of top entries list Wisconsin as home. One town in particular, Hayward, is known as the log rolling capitol of the world, and entrants from that town will most likely figure prominently in the 2004 Great Outdoor Games.

Hayward is located adjacent to the Namekagon River in northern Wisconsin. It's stance on the river is no coincidence. Before trains and trucks carried logs, the rivers served as highways, and the logs floated downriver in a flood of timber that coincided each year with the flood of spring thaw.

Hayward's 45-year-old Lumber Jack World Championships include chopping, sawing and tree sawing, held each July to continue the heritage of the logging industry.

Shortly after the Civil War, in the late 1860s, logging began in earnest along Wisconsin's riverbanks. Pine logs were the wood of choice. The wood is light but strong, and fairly easy to mill, relative to hardwoods.

Pine's density provided buoyancy, allowing the logs to float high in the water and navigate twisty, narrow rivers.

While today we would guffaw at the idea of an industry overtaking our waterways, early logging did just that. A pile of logs, sometimes over 150 feet high was gathered at the river banks, and released when high water came each spring. Many smaller rivers in Wisconsin were actually dammed and blasted to even the flow.

Dams were constructed to create a gusher of current able to pick up the many logs stranded on riverbanks and sand bars. The blasting did the opposite, widening stretches of river where logs often jammed up precariously. The logs went downstream to the mill and after milling were fashioned into rafts which carried the logs further downstream, including national distribution down the Mississippi River.

It took a crew of hearty and sometimes daring men to see the logs down Wisconsin's rivers. The rollway, the pile of logs that was made in preparation for the spring melt, was tumbled piece by piece into the river by loggers with nimble feet and quick reflexes. From there, the "jam crew" stayed in front of the logs, guiding them through dams and jams.

A second group, the "rear crew," worked behind the logs (often several days upstream), working at freeing logs stuck in low water or on obstacles. With the balancing act required to stay out on a river poking and prodding at logs, log rolling became an established place in Wisconsin's culture.

By the mid-1890s Wisconsin was one of the world's largest producers of wood. Every year, over 3.5 billion board feet of lumber were produced, along with more than 200,000 cords of pulpwood. It is said that Wisconsin timber built the entire city of Chicago, which was a prime lumber outlet after its historic fire in 1871.

The bulk of the actual tree felling occurred in winter. This was because the logs needed to be ready for the spring floods, and also because the initial transportation of the logs, before trains and autos, took place on the ice. Logging crews iced over forest paths as carts of water were driven over the paths like a modern day "Zamboni," and runner tracks were cut into the ice roads.

Teams of horses or oxen then pulled sleds of fresh cut timber to the riverbank or mill. Although horses were often valued for their speed, oxen were sometimes favored for their lack of maintenance. In the summer, oxen could simply be left in the woods with a bell on, only to be rounded back up once winter approached. Blue oxen were rumored to be infrequent.

The loggers worked as long as there was daylight. The quarters were shacks, but usually well built. Inside was an area for cooking and dining, as well as a bunk house area. You can imagine the scene in a bunkhouse, filled with the smell of wool wet from sweat and snow, and men hardened from a long day of work.

Meals tended to be a focal point. No logging camp could keep its men without a decent cook and plenty of food. The loggers tended to eat three hot meals a day, with lunch being brought, still hot, out to the woods. Pastries and pies were a mainstay, as they were cheaper than meat and always welcomed. At night, it was not uncommon for the men to bed down in bunks fashioned of hay.

The inclusion of railroads in the logging business brought about changes. For one, the hardwoods, which couldn't float down a river, could now be harvested and then transported via train to the mill. Forests that had been logged for pine were cutover a second time, now harvesting the hardwoods that remained. Secondly, tree stands well away from rivers were now accessible and heavily logged. Those forests that had been overlooked because of inaccessibility were fair game for the railroads.

Many Wisconsin towns were built at significant points along the timber trail. A town with "dam" in its name can often be traced back to an old logging dam built to harness the river's flow. Mills became the impetus for many a town as well, as did railroad hubs.

Visitors to the Great Outdoor Games will return to the skills of these early days when watching the lumberjack skill events at the Alliant Energy Center Campus in Madison.