If one drove by Hockinson Heights Elementary School on Friday, Nov. 21, they may have noticed a rather large teepee on the school campus.
The large teepee was built by Nathanael “Woody” Hayford, of Hockinson, all the way back to when he was 18 years old. Hayford first brought the teepee to Hockinson Heights Elementary School when his son, now 17, was in second grade.
“He’s a junior now and when he was in second grade, we heard they were learning about Native Americans, and we said, ‘Hey, we’ve got a teepee, and we’d love to bring it out and set it up,’” Hayford said.
Hayford and his wife, Mallory, have been packing the nearly 20-by-20-foot teepee with 27-foot-long poles almost every year since then to Hockinson Heights Elementary School.
“It’s kind of like a free field trip,” Hayford said. “It costs the school nothing. It requires no large amount of effort. They just have to arrange the schedule and let them know what’s happening and then I come and do it at no cost. I don’t get anything out of it other than just simply sharing and the kids get this experience.”
He said they’ve even utilized the teepee during camping trips and family reunions.
“It’s big enough that I can squeeze a class of 19, 20, 24, plus a couple of adults in there without it being incredibly crowded,” Hayford said.
Hayford said he would be interested in taking it to other schools. If a school is interested, Hayford can be contacted by emailing nathanaelqhayford@gmail.com.
To get to this point, a lot of research was conducted on an early website and even a book.
“I went to an art school, the Vancouver School of Arts and Academics, and you had to do a junior project and a senior project,” Hayford recalled. “And I was interested in Native Americans, particularly the Comanche Tribe, and this is stylized after a Comanche teepee with a large, kind of headdress at the top.”
He bought the canvas from a local sail shop and sewed it together. Hayford then bought the poles out of a place called Nomadics Tipi Makers in Bend, Oregon. He first assembled the teepee 24 years ago.
Hayford added that the Nomadics Tipi Makers were utilized for the movie “Dances With Wolves.”
“You couldn’t look up on the internet to find something like that then,” Hayford said of trying to find material. “You had to go find some place and so I bought [the canvas] from a sail company that makes sails for sailboats and stitched it all together. It’s 21 feet from front to back and 19 feet across because it’s not round, it’s egg-shaped.”
Despite its large size, Hayford and his wife can assemble it in just under an hour, he told elementary students.
“It takes the two of us about 45 minutes to set up the outer cover and the poles,” he said. “There’s an inner cover that’s not set up. To set it up properly and have insulating value, the inner cover touches the ground, you know. The outer cover does not.”
As Hayford teaches the students about the Native American lifestyle inside the teepee, he said he would love to add animal hides and other items that indigenous people would have utilized.
“My studies have mostly been about the Comanche Tribe, which is just of interest to me,” Hayford said. “This teepee is stylized after a Comanche teepee.”
Hayford added that he hopes the experience of being in a teepee as a second grader leaves a lasting impact on the young student. He also joked that when the student tells their parents about how big the teepee is, they’re not exaggerating.
