Best tree-climbers on the Prairies descend on Winnipeg to ascend giant Elm

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This article was published 25/08/2018 (2652 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Jesse Antonation moves quickly. 

The veteran arborist and treeclimber scrambled up a pair of 50-foot ropes strung in an elm tree to slap a bell on a high limb in less than 30 or so seconds Saturday morning at the Prairie Chapter Tree Climbing Championship in Kildonan Park (his official time won’t be released until the end of the competition).

The championship, which runs through today, brings 40 of the best climbers from across the prairies to vie for the top spot. 

The ascending event was Antonation’s first of five for the day. “I’ve got four more to go. It’s going to be a long day,” he said, slightly short of breath. The top climbers of Saturday’s competition will compete today for the highest branch. 

Antonation is humble about it, but he’s got a good shot — he was the men’s champion at last year’s competition, earning him the right to represent the prairies at the International Tree Climbing Championships earlier this month.

The best male and female climbers from today’s championship will get the same chance next year as Antonation did this year. 

Other events include a simulated work station where climbers go from limb to limb, and a rescue scenario where they need to reach a dummy and lower it to safety. 

Antonation works as a licensed arborist by day — a demanding and dangerous job, but one he enjoys. “In a setting like this, it is a lot of fun. Day to day, this is one of the most dangerous professions next to crabfishermen.” 

Thirty-year veteran Dwayne Neustaeter, the event’s head technician, knows how dangerous it can be. Once, he was standing with his feet planted into the trunk of a cottonwood tree, chainsaw in hand, making a notch on part of the trunk. There was a rope rigged around the section of tree that he was meant to push it over while a person on the ground slowly lowered it. 

However, the groundsmen held the rope a little too tight, and the several-hundred pound piece of wood slammed into the trunk he was standing on. It knocked him unconscious. “I was injured quite well,” he said with a laugh.

Despite the dangers, he seems to love the work. He works as a trainer with Arboriculture Canada — and his son, DJ, has been climbing most of his life. He’s in his early 20s now, but this year is his first competition.

“I’m going to win,” said the younger Neustaeter with a big smile. “It’s super fun but it’s hard work.” 

He describes the work as industrial athletics.

Dwayne Neustaeter said most people get into the job by accident. “A friend, relative or someone they know needs help at a tree company… they chip brush and see climbers and trucks and say this looks cool,” he said. “A certain percentage of them never leave.”

Even with the risk of death, climbers love their jobs, Neustaeter said.

“It’s a weird thing about trees and people — it’s a deep connection people have with trees,” he said. “It’s an outdoor job, it’s exhilarating, it’s fun and exciting, it has an element of danger — doing things that others would dare not attempt — there’s a pride and a thrill that comes with that.” 

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca