Ax Men

Ax Men is the first-ever non-fiction series about the treacherous life of Pacific Northwest timber cutters. From History and Original Productions, the same team responsible for the mega hit, Ice Road Truckers, this series looks at the legacy that the pioneers of our country laid for the present and future generations of loggers. Deep in the woods of the Pacific Northwest, rugged men make their living doing one of the most dangerous jobs in history… Logging. Their mission: to retrieve timber perched on mountainsides too steep to access with machines. But this is no easy task. For more than a hundred years, larger than life characters, many of whom are members of logging families that go back to the time when the West was being settled, have spent their days among towering trees and powerful machines and their nights in outposts far from the comforts of civilization. Ax Men will tell remarkable stories detailing the history of the logging industry, showing how technology has transformed life for today’s logger, while the struggle of man versus nature stays the same. Over the course of thirteen episodes, Ax Men follows four logging crews through a season in the remote forests of northwest Oregon. Plagued by mechanical failures, relentless weather–including a hurricane that ripped through the area–and violent and unpredictable terrain, these brave men risk their lives retrieving the very timber we depend on to build our country. Snapped cables, runaway logs and treacherous machinery are among the many dangers that threaten their lives and safety everyday. Anything and everything can go wrong on these sites and the price of even the simplest mistake can mean death. Danger is a full-time job for these brave men who put everything on the line each and every day to retrieve the Pacific Northwest timber with which we build our country. Snapped cables, runaway logs and razor-sharp chainsaws are just some of the dangers that threaten their lives daily. Even with new technology that should make the job easier, anything and everything can and does go wrong.