Tipis TeePees Tepees

From the FOREWORD:

We at the Straw Bale Trading Post share with you the excitement of sewing your own tipi. In 1996, in a small bungalow apartment in Seattle, on a beautiful old wood floor, we sewed our first tipi: a 19-ft. Sioux style. We used a 15-oz. brown canvas from a roll of stock overrun we bought cheaply from a clothing manufacturer in Seattle. (From a listing in the IMEX “Industrial Materials Exchange” catalog: a recycling materials catalog which lists free or low cost “waste” materials from Pacific Northwest manufacturers.)

Using a non-treated material was a worry to us... but we worried a lot less after we took a 5x5-ft swatch of it and brought it into the shower with us. After several showers, and under close scrutiny, the water had not seeped through.

This was a relief... thinking of our tipi being our new home, on our new land in Idaho, with our new baby soon to be born. The least we could expect was to be relatively dry. The tipi was also the easiest way to keep warm with a fire right away--without the need of a stove thimble or other stove apparatus. We had considered making a yurt... but unless you can live with smoke like the Tibetans do--you will need stove apparatus.

What the tipi showed us in use was that not only was it good for keeping us dry–but it was strong against high winds as well... and even more importantly it was an inspiring, warm, and comforting abode that made a life-changing and memorable experience out of our wilderness homesteading adventure.

Morning light would shine and dance on the smoke flaps, and upon the symmetry of the poles, and we would lie in bed and wonder at the simple beauty of its design. When downpours struck at the walls at night our little family would lay snug in bed. In evening we would read stories by lantern light. When weather turned cold in Fall we laughed, exalted, by the reality of sitting warm at the fire, watching the smoke curl up through the smoke hole, cooking pancakes, while Winter’s first snowflakes danced in the air outside.

There was the time I stood, braced against the winds of a fierce Summer storm–-bare-chested and bare-footed, drenched from rain, pants sodden and heavy–as I heard snapping and tearing from all quarters of our woods. Leaves and needles torn from the trees whisked past horizontally. 100-ft. larches, normally tall and stately–hovering over our heads like ancient sentinels--bowed full over at their waists; their tips whipping in the wind like the merest moss in a rushing river. The most resounding crack was heard as an old lodgepole tree (much too old for a lodgepole tree) of 20-inches in diameter was pulled up from its roots. I judged its top to just barely miss me–and it did--as it slammed, crashed, and whipped itself to the earth ten feet from where I stood. As I looked to the tipi I expected to see it rising up like a foolish umbrella–all of our belongings being strewn in every direction and soaked through: ruined. We hadn’t secured the tripod rope to a stake in the ground. The cover was staked with wooden pegs, but all we had read said to secure the tripod... but there in front of me was not a foolish white-man’s umbrella blowing into a thicket of trees–but an amazing invention designed empirically over eons of time to survive the strongest winds mother nature could throw at it.

The tipi did not float up, but the wind had wrapped itself around the shape of it and pushed it into the ground; the pole tips pushing into the earth. The smoke flaps did what their names implied: they flapped. Set away from this prevailing wind they merely fell closed upon one another. When the whole conflagration had passed [110 mph wind micro bursts the news later reported] we came back into our tipi to find everything just as it had been: queen size bed on the right, old Jotul wood stove in the middle, baby crib on the left, chest of drawers recently rummaged through, curved couch on the back wall past the stove–a book laying open on it where we had last been reading; bookmark laying on the page. What an exuberant laugh we had that evening–and what a life-changing experience it was. To this day I watch with a certain mischievous expectation as wind storms arise in a camp full of wall

tents and lean-tos; secretly (or not-so-secretly) waiting to see them blow away or tear off tarps... while the tipis stand stoic and invincible.

I speak like a proud father. But really now... to get back to the matter on hand I must say that our first experience of sewing the tipi was not without trouble. How we cursed the book we had. I will not name the book. It had its merits.

Marisa has been a seamstress, private and professional, for many years and she knew there were things not quite right. I have been a writer and publisher for years [don’t bother delving into the professional life of a writer–it is a sticky and delicate subject–and broaching it will invariably lead down a long-winded and winding path becoming fraught with lies, half-truths and, at best, wishful-thinking.] Suffice to say I guessed the writer, artist, and editor were all at odds with one-another and couldn’t figure out how to match up any of the three’s contributions to the work. It just didn’t make sense... but we managed, with wit and fanagling, and reading between the lines (and drawings) to make sense out of it anyhow.

Now, after years of making tipis ourselves, we not only have it figured out, but we have some things improved upon and others innovated. In addition there is really no one truly right way to do things. In most cases we will give you the easiest, strongest alternative... as well as an option if you are as stubborn as ourselves about having things your way. Hopefully you will find putting your lodge together less frustrating as we did. If you are more skilled than the average bear, don’t dismay; feel free to skip over our pedantic explanations and get on to the juicy stuff.

Don’t be in too much of a hurry though. You want to look up at your lodge some beautiful morning–with the sun beaming through the smooth, cotton-creamy canvas–and smile with admiration and self-satisfaction at your nice straight seams

Walk in the path of beauty,

Karl & Marisa

Straw Bale Trading Post

Idaho 2005