Having had the idea for an event like this for some time, Oswald Plankensteiner, a passionate carter and Noriker breeder from S. Pietro/St. Peter in the Aurina/Ahrntal valley, decided to go the whole proverbial hog and invite all friends of this sustainable way of transporting wood to his Obergruberhof farmstead for the very first International Carriage Logging meeting.
And on Sunday 21 January 2024, 16 participants from South and East Tyrol as well as Carinthia took him up on his invitation and marched to the timber loading area together with their horses and carriages.
A crowd of spectators accompanied the loggers throughout the forest of the Obergruberwald landholding and watched the carters load timber the traditional way, tying the logs with chains and clamps, just as it was done in the olden days
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After a brief interval with refreshments organised by the Peätra Gsichto association, a long procession of Noriker horses pulling sturdy sledges loaded with heavy logs set off down into the valley to the Obergruberhof farm, where the impressive harnessed teams with their precious cargo of wood and old-school sleighs were presented to the public and applauded with great admiration. And once the logs were unloaded, the carters even had a chance to compete in a fun “wood-loaders’ cheese loading contest”.
As the organiser of this very special event, it was important to Oswald Plankensteiner to showcase this old and now increasingly rare craft of transporting wood by horse including the equipment used in times long gone – wooden sleighs, chains, chain tensioners, clamps, wedges and many more traditional tools –, in a bid to prevent it from falling into oblivion.