PORT ANGELES –Logging is more than a job.
It’s a way of life.
Just ask Gabe Rygaard, president — and TV celebrity — of Port Angeles-based Rygaard Logging.
“I was driving a bulldozer by the time I was 13 years old,” he said in a telephone interview from New York on Friday.
“I love being out in the outdoors. It doesn’t matter what the weather is.”
“It’s in the blood,” explained Craig Rygaard, Gabe’s father.
“We’re loggers to the core.”
The Rygaards are gaining national celebrity status — first for being on an episode of “America’s Toughest Jobs” last fall, and now for their role in the second season of The History Channel’s hit series “Ax Men.”
The 12 weekly hour-long episodes of “Ax Men” begins Monday at 10 p.m. The History Channel is on cable TV channel 42 in Clallam and Jefferson counties. The show will be repeated at 11 p.m.
“Ax Men” is shown three hours earlier on satellite TV.
Competing for timber
The second season of the show features five Pacific Northwest ¬Âlogging companies — two from northwest Oregon, one from Montana and one from Aberdeen — in a competition for loads of timber as they fight “mechanical failures, relentless weather and unpredictable terrain . . . picking up where their fathers and grandfathers left off, to conquer America’s final frontier.” according to The History Channel Web site.
“Danger is a full-time job, as these brave men put everything on the line each and every day to retrieve the 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.”
Monday’s first episode is titled, “Ax Men Cometh.”
Promoting the show
Gabe spent the past week on a whirlwind east coast media tour promoting the show.
He and his fellow Ax Men have appeared on Martha Stewart Living, FOX News’ Red Eye and’ Fox and Friends.
They’ve had dozens of interviews with radio, satellite TV and East Coast television station.
CBS had to postpone an appearance last week because it couldn’t get the right permit to have chain saws in Manhattan.
“Ax Men is huge in New York,” Gabe said.
The show is featured on billboards in the city, on the sides of buses and taxi cabs.
It has a popular Web site with a Facebook page at www.history.com.
“I’m having a blast,” said Gabe, who will return to Port Angeles on Monday.
“I’ve never been to New York.
“I feel like a fish out of water. The city is bigger [in population] than the whole Olympic Peninsula.”
There’s something about a logger’s way of life that has captured the imagination of millions of viewers across the country.
“There is an element of danger in it,” Craig said.
“It’s hard and fast work. It can put you on the spot and make you think on your feet.”
In a one-hour season preview season, which aired Thursday night on The History Channel, the narrator introduced the other four logging companies before saying:
“One company will give them all a run for their money.
“Rygaard Logging of Port Angeles, Washington. The father-son team of Craig and Gabe Rygaard keeps the logs coming.”
The show zoomed in on a satellite map of the North Olympic Peninsula, and showed clips from the upcoming season.
Joyce and Sappho
“I worked with my son all my life,” Craig said in the preview.
“Gabe is my equal or better.
“When the chips were down, Gabe would come through for you. It’s just the way I’ve always felt.
“When Gabe is on the job, Gabe calls the shots.”
Tempers flare and cuss words fly over the course of three months of footage captured in the woods near Joyce and Sappho.
Craig, for example, is shown scolding rookie Bradley Hewitt, 24, in the season preview.
“It just comes out,” Craig said on Saturday at Jesse Webster park.
“I’m not even thinking about it.”
Said Gabe: “We’re willing to roll with the punches. “It’s good TV.”
Craig and Gabe Rygaard agreed that the “Ax Men” crew members were just as dedicated as the loggers themselves.
They were on the site filming every day, rain or shine.
The final episodes of the season were shot in brutal conditions, during the extended snowstorm that paralyzed the Peninsula in December.
On ‘Toughest Jobs’
Rygaard Logging caught its big break last March, break when Original Productions contacted the family about doing an episode of “America’s Toughest Jobs.”
The show was filmed in June and aired in October.
Original Productions executives — who also produce “Ax Men,” “Ice Road Truckers,” and “Deadliest Catch” on the Discovery Channel — liked what they saw in the Rygaards.
“We were looking for bosses who are firm in what they believe, and want to educate and teach the broader viewing audience about the industry,” series producer Jarrod Harlow told the Peninsula Daily News in September.
When “Ax Men” became a smash hit in its first season, the producers contacted the Rygaards again about doing Season 2.
“We’re very excited,” said Kathy Rydaard, Craig’s wife.
Besides the danger and drama in the show, another interesting aspect is the “downhill logging” Rygaard does in Season 2.
Acres of trees had fallen in a storm, the Rygaard Logging had to get them off the mountain.
“Gravity is working against you,” Craig said.
“Once they get moving, you’ve got to get them stopped.”
Began in 1993
Craig is a life-long logger who learned the trade from his father, Ed Rygaard, a former Port Angeles businessman.
He formed Rygaard Logging in 1993 with help from his sons, Gabe and Jason.
All three are part-owners.
After taking some business classes at Peninsula College and a fishing stint in Alaska, Gabe branched out to start his own logging business.
When he returned to Rygaard Logging in 1996, he showed a knack for the business side of the operation and assumed the role of company president.
“I’ve always really liked working with my family,” Gabe said.
“We don’t always get along, but at end of the day we do what we have to do tho get the job done.”
Craig now runs the tower side and Jason runs shovel logging side of Rygaard’s operation.
“When Gabriel decided he was going to do what he’s doing right now, things started clicking,” Craig says.
Gabe and his wife, Katy, have three children: Tucker, Aiden, and Trilby.
Jason, 35, and his wife, Adrian, have four children: Payton, Hank, Emily and Della.
The Rygaards have a Web site, www.rygaardlogging.com.
As for the future, Gabe says he’s keeping his fingers crosses that Season 2 of “Ax Men” is “bigger and badder” than Season 1 and that the show reaches new heights.
“We’d be willing to come back,” Gabe said.
Asked what it’s like to see himself on national television, Craig said: “It’s a little strange.”
“It’ll be fun to watch it.”
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
