FEATURE
Jack Harvel
WWW.BENDSOURCE.COM / SEPTEMBER 22, 2022 / BEND’S INDEPENDENT VOICE
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Woodchips fly all over Mosquito Bob’s workspace as he carves a stump into a bear. He can turn a small log into a rough carving in about 30 minutes before painting, though larger statues can take months.
‘Cutting Out Everything That’s Not a Bear’ with Mosquito Bob A former logger finds a way to keep working with wood after the collapse of the logging industry By Jack Harvel
O
n Aug. 15 I received an email from someone only identified as Mosquito Bob in my inbox, hinting about a location. “Hey man, I know a place in the pines that’s magical, enchanted, whimsical, creative, entertaining, dangerous, exciting and unique,” Mosquito Bob wrote. “I would like to share it with folks.” Reporters are used to getting strange emails. Whether it’s a pushy PR firm pitching a story about a Seattle-based dog trainer, a local asking you to report on their neighbor’s overgrown lawn or a political screed about why and how I should cover an event, there’s usually something interesting sprinkled among the dozens of press releases we get in a day. But this one really piqued my interest. Within five minutes I responded asking what this place was, and three minutes after that he invited me to swing by in a similarly cryptic fashion. “Come up and I will show you. There is a private hydration station. Bigfoot & bear sightings most evenings,” Mosquito Bob wrote. I wondered what this could possibly mean. There were three things I imagined this could be: At worst I was being lured to a remote location by someone named Mosquito Bob; slightly better, I was being trolled and the location is infested with mosquitos that would eat me up or this was some kind of weird
Jack Harvel
guerilla marketing. He sent his number, asking to talk. Mondays are usually one of our busier days at the Source, but I had to put my work aside to find out what the hell Mosquito Bob was talking about. Turns out it was some guerilla marketing. Mosquito Bob is breaking into the woodcarving business and wanted to show off the bears, bigfoots and bar he’s built on his property in La Pine. Usually, I’d leave the arts and culture stories to a reporter more suited to it, but Mosquito Bob approached me creatively enough to take full ownership of the story.
The Chainsaws
Mosquito Bob owns hundreds of chainsaws, each with its own name, use and feel. He learned about chainsaws tinkering on old ones as a logger, and has had a passion for the tools ever since.
The name Mosquito Bob (the only name he identifies as, or at least the only name he’ll share with news reporters) draws from the protective eyewear Bob wears while using one of the hundreds of chainsaws he has strewn around his property. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of chainsaws and talks about them the same way a car enthusiast would talk about classic cars — noting the looks, feel, technology and sound of different chainsaws. The modern saw chain has Oregon roots; in 1947 lumberjack Joseph Cox designed the Cox Chipper Chain after observing how timber beetles cut through trees.