Tipi

by BOB WOODWARD

Home of the brave

photo by CHRISTIAN HEEB

hroughout much of the world the tipi (teepee) favored by Mid-Western and Western U.S. nomadic Native-American tribes has slipped into the collective consciousness as the dwelling of choice for all North American tribes. The Iroquois had their longhouses, the Navajos took to their hogans, other western tribes used rounded wood-framed brush and grass covered wickiups, which were similar to the wigwams of some Northeastern tribes. But the tipi (the Sioux spelling of the word) is firmly implanted in popular culture as the Native American's home.

It was a tipi camping excursion to Fort Rock in 1970 that led to the creation of Nomadic Tipis, a Bend company now famous worldwide for its Lakota Sioux tipis.

The camper in question was East Coast transplant Jeb Barton, who had been working on a timber-thinning contract in the woods around Fort Rock. While on the job, Barton, his brother and some co-workers camped in a tipi throughout the fall and most of the winter.

“My twin brother, Tom, and I were both school teachers back East, "Barton said," and we'd come west with the idea of setting up a new type of school. Living in that tipi at Fort Rock during the timber thinning project gave me insight into its value as a classroom for teaching and learning about the biosphere."

But instead of founding a school, the Barton twins founded a tipi-making company, Nomadics Tipis. Now almost four decades later, Nomadics sells its tipis worldwide through its website www.tipi.com.

And in testament to its unique design and ability to provide year-round shelter, the tipi is becoming an increasingly popular as a secondary dwelling and meditation space for many non-Native Americans including many Central Oregonians.

Local stone mason Wayne Cook has had a Lakota Sioux-style tipi on his property on Long Butte for three years and uses it as a get-away for meditation and drumming.

Long before moving to Central Oregon, Cook lived in a tipi in rural Maine for all but the coldest months of the year. His present tipi remains up and habitable year-round.

“It's beautiful and gets me back to nature,” he said. “I don't camp as much as I used to, so sleeping over in my tipi gives me the same experience.”

Along with people like Wayne Cook, there are fifteen other Nomadics tipi owners throughout Central Oregon, and Barton estimates that his company has sold 20,000 tipis worldwide.

Included in those sales were all the tipis for Kevin Kostner's film Dances with Wolves. On the music side of the arts, Sir Paul McCartney's annual Glastonbury Music Festival ordered seventy-five Nomadics Tipis for festival attendees to rest and relax in during the 2007 gathering in Great Britain.

Closer to home, Sisters High School art teacher Michael Baynes and his wife Tina have owned two Nomadics Tipis for the past seven years. Their newest one is on their property in Sister's Tollgate subdivision.

“When I became interested in getting a tipi,” Baynes recalled, “I got a book at the library on them and discovered that Nomadics was right down the road from us and that the company was well known and respected for its tipis.

The Baynes' daughter, April, 33, hand-painted both the Baynes’ tipis, which led her to doing it professionally for Nomadics.