Instructor Profiles

In the garden

Enjoying some cabbage

Program Director, Woniya Thibeault

My interest in living "a hand made life" began in childhood. Always fascinated with homestead days and Native American Culture, I spent countless hours playing outside gathering clover blossoms pretending they were food or building "log cabins" from rocks and sticks. Always wanting to make and do more for myself, I began knitting and sewing in grade school. Still dissatisfied with having to buy yarn and cloth from a store, by my late teens I was teaching myself to spin yarn from raw wool instead of buying it from the store, and learning to tan deer hides to make clothing. At 19 attending my first primitive skills event and my world was never the same again. I devoted myself to learning as many skills as possible, working as close to the source as possible. While no longer determined to run naked into the wilderness with nothing but my teeth and hands for tools, I continue to integrate a variety of these skills into my daily life and to live as free as possible from dependence on the modern industrial machine. I have spent the last fifteen years in this pursuit and have been teaching various skills such as spinning, felting, basketry, tanning, weaving and working with buckskin for more than a decade. My particular focus for much of this time has been on fiber arts and hidework- creating the cloth from which we weave our lives and wrap ourselves in, and growing, harvesting and preserving my own food.

In addition to these skills, I have spent much of my life studying the natural world. I have a broad academic background in biology with particular focus on botany and entomology. I have worked as a naturalist and educator in various places throughout the U.S. and hold a Master’s degree in Environmental Science.

My pursuit of a life lived close to the source eventually brought me to Oregon where I now live in a small, off the grid community of like minded folks, working to create an alternative to the modern American dream. I am very passionate about the life I live and about sharing these skills with others. I am excited to be presenting the "Skills For Real Living" program and believe that it is only through personal lifestyle choices like these that we can affect real change in the world.