Before there were foam SUPs and carbon fiber paddles, and without knowledge of the Polynesians, there were Finnish lumberjacks.
Today, there are only a few dozen loggers in Finland who can still coast down the river on a log as if it were a modern standup paddleboard.
Apparently, the historic loggers of the Finnish countryside may have had an edge on the Polynesians when it came to balancing on tippy watercrafts. In the world of logging, navigating a river full of logs was just part of the job.
The skills that traditional loggers learned on the river were adapted to a form of entertainment, which later led to competitive lumberjack sports like log rolling.
Now let’s see you try and surf a slipper wet log down a fast-flowing river?
