Bruce & Neville Alexander Axemen Legends

Axemen Legends of Northland
Over the past century, Northland has produced many axemen and sawyers of stature. Names such as Mick Griffen, Joe Julian, Denny Hoey, Bill Shelford and Innes Davidson have joined the ranks of New Zealand’s legendary sporting greats, and Northland axemen continue to excel.
Featuring highlights from interviews recorded with a selection of contemporary Northland axemen, this exhibition from 2016 aimed to summarize this enduring vigorous heritage sport through their eyes: its events, equipment, technique and organization.
BRUCE ALEXANDER
“While my father watched, I won the heat, the semi-final and the final. I think that’s the closest I could have got to perfection.”
Bruce Alexander comes from a Northland farming and sawmilling family and competed in his first chopping competition at Onerahi, Whangarei, aged 23. After moving to Tokoroa in 1959 he ran a forestry contracting business with fellow axeman Innes Davidson and began competing seriously.
Specializing in the jiggerboard, or tree felling, but competing successfully in all chopping events, from 1964 to 1974 Bruce logged 70 placings, 16 championship titles and 5 New Zealand records. In 1963-64 Bruce competed at Melbourne with the Northern Axemen’s Union team. He also chopped in the Sydney Show, both privately and as a member of the New Zealand team, through the late 60s to the early 70s, as well as competing with the NZ team at Los Angeles in 1972.
Bruce holds two NZ Warner Awards for the Sport of Woodchopping - the Certificate of Merit for Outstanding Performance in Competition (1973) and the Services Certificate for Outstanding Services to the sport (1974). A return to Northland in 1978 to farm at Mangakahia meant less time for the sport but Bruce did not hang up his axe, continuing to compete, administrate, organize and prepare wood for competitions, and to coach and mentor many New Zealand axemen over many years.
NEVILLE ALEXANDER
“The tree has always fascinated me.”
Like his father before him, Neville discovered his athleticism and build perfectly suited to the jiggerboard event, and remembers, as a child in Tokoroa, “climbing the tree” after chopping meets, swarming up the pole with no boards. After the family moved north to Mangakahia, not a tree on the farm was safe from the ambitious teenager as he practiced building a technique that his father describes as “near perfect”.
In the Alexander tradition, Neville counts breaking a New Zealand record at Wanganui in front of his mother, “despite coming second”, and another two records at Arapohue in front of Bruce - “my best mate, coach and my father” - as the highlights of his career. And like his father, he still holds a New Zealand record for ‘the tree’.
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Be good to see Jim Willy on one of these!! Hes only 2 mins up the Paparoa Oakleigh road. Mans a fossil lol