In the second season of the television series “Ax Men,” the History Channel is showing the world how dramatic Pacific Northwest logging can get.

Within the first month of the season, which started March 2, a veteran timber faller storms off a logging job swearing at his boss; a protégé loses control of his chainsaw and nearly tears his leg open during his first attempt at bucking logs; a terrified greenhorn scales his first tree using only rope and spiked boots while his boss taunts him from below; and the heir to a multi-million-dollar logging company botches his chance to prove himself as hook tender, the top job on a logging site.

But the reality TV show has generated quite a bit of drama off-screen, too.

Earlier this month, Washington natural resource officials seized 50 logs from S&S Aqua Logging of Cle Elum, Wash., one of the five companies featured in season two. The state may charge the company with felony theft for illegally salvaging the wood from the Hoquiam River.

Occupational Health and Safety Administration officials have been shadowing the Vernonia-based Pihl Logging Co. crew, and Jay Browning, owner of J.M. Browning Logging Co., says he’s not amused by the show’s tendency to leave his company’s finer moments on the cutting room floor.

After the first season, the show’s producers blew off Gustafson Logging of Astoria, which didn’t return for season two.

Owner Mark Gustafson said after seeing season two’s sensationalized version of life in the logging industry, he doesn’t mind being left out of the limelight.

Expanded reachThe “Ax Men” show creates a mock competition among the featured logging companies, tracking the volume of wood they retrieve over a 15-week season and stringing together the most riveting moments.

Last season, Browning Logging Co. vastly outperformed three other Oregon logging companies, Gustafson Logging, Stump Branch Logging of Banks and Pihl Logging.

This season, the producers dropped Gustafson and Stump Branch and expanded the show’s reach to include Rygaard Logging of Port Angeles, Wash., S&S Aqua Logging and R&R Conner Aviation, a helicopter logging company from Conner, Mont.

After allowing camera crews to follow them six days a week for several months last year, the companies don’t know what footage from the season will air or who will come out on top.

The final cut of “Ax Men” might not paint the picture of the logging industry the featured companies hoped it would.

In fact, each episode focuses almost exclusively on clashing personalities and life-threatening situations.

But those are indeed elements of the job, said Mike Pihl.

He said it’s hard for him to watch the show and face some of his industry’s realities.

“I’m always very critical about it,” Pihl said. “I need to get to the point of enjoying it. … When you’ve got cameras following you for four months six days a week, they catch stuff you don’t necessarily like to see, but it is what happens out there.”

Most scenes in the show are littered with cuss words and narrated by a deep-voiced announcer, who hypes the perils of the job and the companies’ internal conflicts.

The initial shock and outrage the show sparked within the logging industry wore off during the first season, Pihl said, which is why he signed on for season two.

“I decided to do it because a lot of people don’t know anything about logging,” he said. “They see a logging truck go up the road and they think that’s a logger.”

Pihl said he’d like to have a crew of college grads working for him, but logging attracts a different breed.

“The guys you take into the brush, sometimes they’re not there because they’re seeing their probation officer or they had too much to drink the night before,” he said. “You don’t like to admit it, but it is what it is.”

On one hand, Pihl said, he saw more OSHA inspectors last year than he had in the previous 25 years combined.

But on the other hand, the show has helped his company pick up some private logging jobs, which is good for business.

Good days left outJay Browning said after watching the first weeks of season two he wished the show had included more of the positive aspects of logging.

“We had some real bad days, but most of all we had good days,” he said. “I wish they’d show a little more of the good days. A lot of hard work goes into these thinning sales – they’re extremely difficult.”

His son Jesse Browning has been pegged as the likely successor to take over the multimillion-dollar J.M. Browning Logging Co.

In one episode, the narrator says before Jesse Browning can take over the family business he has to prove he’s not a “loose cannon,” as images of the young logger screaming and throwing things flash across the screen.

“My son Jesse is a really hard worker, and they tend to gravitate toward any kind of a failure they can come up with,” Jay Browning said. “I guess they think that’s entertaining. To me, it’s really not.”

Before season two aired, Jay Browning said he was hoping to see more of the industry’s professionalism featured.

But he knew it was a gamble after watching the first season, which cut out the more educational footage.

“We learned a lot about Hollywood,” he said. “A lot of good education got cut on the cutting room floor. We want for people to understand this is a regulated industry that does things by the books. We try to do things safely, and sometimes it doesn’t come out that way.”

However, the many fans who write to Browning seem to be satisfied with the show.

“We get fan mail every day because of the show,” Jay Browning said. “Last year we got blasted with criticism from the industry, but we had over four million viewers in the U.S. We’ve never gotten one negative piece of fan mail.”

Producers snub GustafsonMark Gustafson, owner of Gustafson Logging in Astoria, said his company was initially contacted about signing on for the second season of the show, but after he expressed some concerns about the first season and questioned a couple items on the proposed contract, he never heard back from the show’s producers.

In retrospect, he said, it’s probably better his company is not featured in season two.

“We never really had the chance to say no,” Gustafson said. “I’m just speculating that our operation did not fit their vision of what they wanted to show in the program. For whatever reason, we weren’t there, and after watching season two, that’s just fine with me.”

Gustafson said he thinks the History Channel has lost credibility with its skewed portrayal of the logging industry. The producers cut a lot of footage of loggers talking about forest stewardship and replanting the hillsides after clearing them.

“Most people who watch the show think that what you see is the only thing that was filmed,” said Gustafson. “The potential to show and educate and still entertain is there -well, it was there.”

Gustafson’s company Web site is full of comments from disappointed viewers who had enjoyed getting to know the role model logger Darrell Holthusen of Warrenton and other Gustafson crew members. Altogether the site has collected 42 pages of fan chatter.

Holthusen was disappointed, too, but not about missing out on season two.

“He was thoroughly disgusted after season one,” Gustafson said. “We did what we thought was a good thing, and it turned out the way it was. But we’re still loggers. That’s what we started out as, and that’s what we’ll continue to be.”