FRYEBURG — A total of 120 men and women sawed, chopped and rolled wood at the 45th Annual Saco Valley Woodsmen’s Day on Monday. They came from across the United States and Canada to compete for prize money and glory.

Ken Severy of Durham was one of the few competitors from Maine. He competed in on the University of Maine Woodsmen’s Team and for about eight years after that.

The civil and structural engineer said that at the 2010 Fryeburg Fair he decided to give it a go again and ran into friends he competed with in the 1970s.

Now, he’s competing at Woodsmen’s Days nearly every weekend. He said he’s been to 17 this year, chopping blocks and rolling logs with his son. Severy said the competition is tough. “There’s a lot of very talented people here.”

Two of the most talented are Nancy Zalewski of Manitowoc, Wis., and Mike Sullivan of Winsted, Conn. Zalewski got her start in 1999 at the Lumberjack World Championships in Hayward, Wis. She asked Sullivan to teach her how to cut. “We’ve been sawing together for 13 years,” she said.

Zalewski said she competes about every other weekend, meeting up with Sullivan at county fairs across the country and sharing the expensive saws that competitors must supply. She said she was drawn to the events because it’s a “power game,” and Zalewski is powerful.

She’s been winning competitions and breaking world records since 2002. On Monday, she set a new women’s world record for the bucksaw competition at 9.665 seconds. Zalewski holds four Saco Valley records; Sullivan holds two, including their shared record in the Jack and Jill crosscut.

She’s competed in several states, including Wisconsin, and in Australia and New Zealand. Zalewski said the Fryeburg Fair is one of the better competitions because of the number of women’s events.

On Monday, she competed in the bucksaw; the Jack and Jill cross cut, where a man and a woman hold either end of a long saw; the ax throw; and log roll and underhand cut, where competitors must stand on a block and chop it in half between their feet.

Back at home, she’s a chemist, which she said doesn’t let her train on the job. “It’s a desk job,” she said. She said she has a place in her backyard where she practices about twice a week when it’s warm enough. She spends the winter months in the gym.

David Billings of Oxford doesn’t need to train off the job. As a professional woodsman, Billings said he’s cutting wood every day.

He competed in the open chain saw event and said he comes for the camaraderie. “I have a lot of friends that are competing,” he said. “It’s like a big family.”

He friends and co-workers got him interested in competitive woodsman events in the 1980s, he said. Even at work they’d compete, “just to see who was fastest.” Taking that competition to county fairs seemed natural.

In the 80s, he was a record-holder in the stock chain saw event, which has been since eliminated. Only the open chain saw event remains, where competitors use souped-up, modified chain saws that require special fuel and are much larger than stock saws.

The open chain saw was Billings’ only event Monday, but he said sometimes he competes in others. Next year, he’ll be running the Woodsmen’s Day competition at the Oxford County Fair in Oxford.

Billings has been a professional logger for 35 years. He said he could retire in December when he turns 62, but he won’t. “I’m too young to retire,” he said. “I wouldn’t know what to do.”

[email protected]