FARMINGTON — Hayden York of Strong worked the controls of a simulator to get the feel of picking up and loading logs onto a trailer Wednesday.

York, a sophomore at Mt. Abram High School in Salem Township, was on a tour of the forestry and wood-harvesting program at Foster Career and Technical Education Center in Farmington. He plans to attend the school next year.

York said he’d never used a such a simulator before.

Westbrook-based Nortrax, a subsidiary of John Deere, loaned two of them to the school for students to get the feel of operating an excavator and a forwarder, an off-road vehicle that picks up wood and loads it into a trailer. It is the second year the company has brought simulators to the school, Kim Voisine, a representative of Nortrax, said.

Forestry student Kevin Smith of Kingfield, a junior at Mt. Abram High School, also used the simulator. He plans a career in logging.

“I liked it,” he said. “It definitely shows you how it would work in the woods.”

Both students learned how to balance logs in the air as they moved them to a virtual trailer.

dperry@sunjournal.com