{"id":49810,"date":"2019-06-24T04:15:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-24T12:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/sports\/miners-clean-up-at-gold-rush-days\/"},"modified":"2019-06-25T12:04:34","modified_gmt":"2019-06-25T20:04:34","slug":"miners-clean-up-at-gold-rush-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/sports\/miners-clean-up-at-gold-rush-days\/","title":{"rendered":"Miners clean up at Gold Rush Days"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t\t\t

The obstacle pole buck requires speed, balance and some know-how with a chainsaw.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

Ryan Friend had all three down on Sunday to win the logging competition, in which contestants walk across a propped-up cedar log, slice the tip off with a chainsaw and return to the start as quickly as possible. The Greens Creek miner completed the task in under 17 seconds en route to winning Co-Bull of the Woods honors at the Juneau Gold Rush Days at Savikko Park.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

Not bad who someone who spends much more time around minerals than lumber.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

“A miner beating out the loggers, that’s kind of nice,” Friend said.<\/p>\n

\"Ryan<\/a>

Ryan Friend competes in the hand mucking contest during the Mining & Logging Competition at the 29th Annual Gold Rush Days at Savikko Park on Saturday, June 22, 2019. (Michael Penn | Juneau Empire)<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t

The obstacle pole buck was one of over 30 events packed into the two-day festival. The competitions began on Saturday morning and didn’t end until Sunday evening. The Gold Rush Days have been a mainstay in Juneau since 1990, after being established as a way to inform the public about mining and highlight “past, present and future of mining and logging in Alaska and in the Juneau Gold Belt.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

[Juneau family finds community, competition at Gold Rush Days<\/a>]<\/ins><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

Alea Oien won the All-Around Resource (highest-scoring competitor), Babe of the Woods (highest-scoring logger) and Best Female Miner (highest-scoring miner).<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

In addition to garnering Co-Bull of the Woods honors, Friend also won co-Best Male Miner. Eddie Petrie was the other Co-Bull of the Woods, and Josh Olson was the Co-Best Male Miner. Juneau Gold Rush Commission Chairman Jerry Harmon said it’s uncommon for there to be ties for either of those awards, let alone both.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

“It’s partly what makes it worth coming here,” Oien, 52, said of winning All-Around Resource.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

Oien, who has been competing at the Gold Rush Days since the mid-90s when she worked at Echo Bay Mines, credits her success to watching others, and then putting new techniques into practice.<\/p>\n

\"Heath<\/a>

Heath Coro competes in the hand mucking contest as judge Bill Wilcox watches during the Mining & Logging Competition at the 29th Annual Gold Rush Days at Savikko Park on Saturday.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t

“I just keep an eye on what works for everybody, and I incorporate that into what I do, and then I remember it for the whole year and employ it the next year,” Oien said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

Oien won six events total this year: women’s spike driving, women’s hand mucking, women’s choke setter race, women’s obstacle pole buck, women’s horizontal chopping and women’s log rolling. Oien said she’s not one to shy away from competition.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

“I just like a challenge, that’s about it,” she said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

\u2022 Contact sports reporter Nolin Ainsworth at 523-2272 or nainsworth@juneauempire.com. Follow Empire Sports on Twitter at @akempiresports.<\/b><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

<\/p>\n\t\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Meet this year’s Bull and Babe of the Woods. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":425,"featured_media":49811,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":9,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-49810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/425"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49810"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=49810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}