Nelson Parker 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.
NELSON PARKER
“What walks in the father, runs in the son…”
Standing block specialist Nelson Parker’s earliest memories are of his father Tom cutting wood in one form or another, whether to feed the kitchen range or develop the home farm established by Grandfather Harry in Tutamoe, near Northland’s Waipoua Forest. Tom crosscut kauri timber in the central North Island and on the Great Barrier Island prior to his WWII service, and was also a competitive chopper, touring eastern Australia in 1950/1951 and not retiring from the sport until his late forties.
Mentored by his father and encouraged by brothers Wade and Warren, Nelson got serious about the sport in 1988, winning several NZ championships and then following his father’s footsteps to tour the Australian circuit - travelling in a Holden, staying in pubs and motor camps, unsponsored and living off his winnings. One of the highlights of Nelson’s career was winning the 15-inch standing block World Championship title in 1993 in 47.28 seconds, beating closest rival Bruce Winkle by nine seconds.
Nelson chopped with the NZ team in Australia for ten years, captaining it for four, and retired from competition in the late 1990s to focus on his family and swamp kauri timber business.
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