Selah’s Jack McEntire, a.k.a. “Chainsaw Jack,” visited Satus Elementary School in Wapato a few weeks back and held some 40 small kids spellbound.

It wasn’t even Halloween!

And this was no horror film.

Despite an obnoxiously-loud chainsaw spewing sawdust into the spring winds, Chainsaw Jack enraptured the kids while he created another piece of log artwork.

“I get all my wood from salvage wood,” Chainsaw said as he sculptured a little moose out of an old log.

McEntire doesn’t cut down any green trees. All the trees are dead and blown down, but he is required to get a special cedar permit, a special hauling permit, and a special ground permit.

“I can’t even take a snag,” he added. “I can only take certain species. Mostly they want them to be gotten rid of because they are in fire hazard areas. It is all old-growth, western red cedar. It is beautiful wood.”
McIntire said that his friends back East, in the Midwest, and in Europe and Australia are jealous of the wood available within 30 minutes of Yakima.

“We have beautiful forests,” he said. “I like the idea of using them. I also like the idea of protecting them. It is one of the reasons that I got hooked up to do this.”

If seeing is believing and listening is learning, these small kids got a lot that day.

Chainsaw continued with his life lessons as he carved out a moose and then added black features and highlights, first with black spray paint and then sanding it down to clean up the paint splatter.

Chainsaw had now completed the initial look of the little moose. It no longer resembled a log. He pulled out a propane blowtorch and scorched the exterior of his creation.

“I am only one of two guys licensed by the federal government to do images of Smokey Bear,” he said. “They liked the way I operated, and I always kinda agreed with their sense. Protect the mountains. Protect the forests, but use them also.”

Chainsaw next took out a file to sand down the rough edges.

“Don’t go home and try this,” he continued. “I have taught everyone from elderly people to children how to carve. But you need to do it in a safe environment.”

Chainsaw told the kids he went to college to become a microbiologist. But one day when he was 35, he gave it all up to pursue chainsaw art.

“Life is crazy!” he said. “When I decided that I wasn’t going to continue doing microbiology and I was going to do chainsaw art, my family thought I was crazy.

“It is not so much what other people think of you that makes you happy,” he said. “It is not how much money you have. It is not the title; it is not the lab coat. It is what you feel inside your head that makes you happy or not.”

Chainsaw told the kids how he had improved his carving skills, when one day he got a telephone call from the producers of the ABC series, “Extreme Makeover.” They had checked out his Web site, and they asked him to create chainsaw art for the show.

Although Chainsaw lives in Selah with his wife and 12-year-old daughter, he gets most of his business from his Internet site, www.chainsawcarvings.net.

Chainsaw grew up in Yakima and graduated from Eisenhower High School.

“I do travel a lot,” he said. “I fly back East and states all over to work on projects. I also do competitions all over the West Coast.

“I do pretty well,” he added. I actually make more money doing this than I would as a full professor of microbiology.”

Chainsaw’s favorite wood carving is an eight-foot warrior completed for the city of Arlington, Texas. It cost $9,000.

He doesn’t make that much for a typical carving. The little moose he finished at Satus Elementary will cost $300.

Chainsaw said that he has done carvings for lots of famous personalities in Hollywood and New York, including Paul Newman. Well-to-do clients find his Web site, and pay all his expenses when they want quality custom carvings.

Chainsaw told the kids that he had so far completed some 2,446 carvings ranging from bears, eagles, and salmon to human figures, dogs, cats, totem poles and furniture like benches and tables.

Chainsaw has won awards for competing at the Westport International Chainsaw Carving Championship. He carved at the Reno Little Joes Carving for Kids to benefit the Make-a-Wish Foundation.

He has also crafted many school mascots, including a cougar for John Campbell Elementary School. On this date, he spent four hours completing the Satus Elementary School plaque.

Regardless of the financial rewards and prestige, Chainsaw said he derives most satisfaction on how people emotionally respond to his carvings.

“No matter how crazy it is, you should do what your heart leads you to do,” he said. “If you find something you love, go for it! But do it safe!”