Logrolling is an exercise in humility. Just stepping onto a floating wooden log causes it to spin. It’s no wonder first-timers to Madison Log Rolling’s drop-in classes on Lake Wingra, a few miles from the Capitol, are challenged to stay stationary for just five seconds.
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“Maybe half” can do it, says owner Shana Verstegen, pictured here. Logrolling is a “hard sport to pick up,” but also “addicting,” because each time you do it, she says, you get a little better.
In Verstegen’s amateur classes, the painted cedar logs are carpeted to make them less slippery. Even as a fun form of leisure, the sport is reverential, a nod to Northwoods lumberjack lore and what was to a thriving 19th-century state industry.
