Guest post by Jordan Childress
Find the teepee trail by heading to Kaplan Drive Park.
In early June of 2013, my dog Bubbles and I were strolling through Kaplan Drive Park in Raleigh, NC when we stumbled upon something different. In the field adjacent to the park’s fitness trail stood a tree with two sticks leaned against it. Piled on the ground below were three more sticks that appeared to have also been leaned upon the tree but had since fallen. Though disturbed from their original state, the intentional shape was obvious… a teepee!
Intuition told me that this was likely the result of a game of “Cowboys & Indians” or some other similarly creative use of nature that children from my neighborhood had left behind. With this hunch in mind I chose to rebuild it, and not only that, but I told myself that on future visits to the park I would add more sticks. And so I did – adding a few sticks here and a few sticks there. Here a stick, there a stick, everywhere a stick-stick.
Day by day, week by week, the volume of sticks at the teepee began to grow. And grow it did, far past the five I’d first come across. Most impressive of all was the fact that there were sticks which I myself hadn’t added… others were joining in! A realization that left me feeling connected to something much bigger than myself, a “headflip” if you will.
Then, one sunny afternoon near the end of the summer, I witnessed a family from my street playing in and around the teepee. Though it was from afar, I could see smiling faces and hear laughter through the air. And what’s more? I kid you not that before they exited the park, every member of that family pulled a stick out of the woods to contribute! This occurrence gave me yet another “headflip”, causing me to seek further insight into the happening that I’d experienced.
More Than Just a Teepee
Amid the wake of having noticed others taking part in what has been referred to as an “unorganized community event”, I felt compelled to share the magic I’d witnessed around other parts of Raleigh. The next step was all too clear, that I should build more teepees!
However, I wanted to do more than just establish additional build sites. I thought it only appropriate to somehow connect the first location to the second, the second to the third, and so on and so forth, continuing in the same fashion so that a trail would be formed. But how to link them all & keep it interesting at the same time? The answer came in the form of a small, wooden bench that I happened upon in the back of my former roommate’s garage.
In an effort to keep these structures as natural as possible (except for painting them) I decided to leave behind a piece of wood at each site that contained a riddle leading to the next. Each riddle is in the form of a wordplay on the succeeding teepee’s location and/or chronology within the trail itself. Teepee #1, or “T1” as I refer to it in the classification system that I’ve adopted, contains the wooden bench from my old roomie’s garage affixed as a keystone above its doorway.
This choice of placement came about after it was suggested by a close friend and fellow teepee “engineer” (thanks Nate!). His idea couldn’t have been more fitting, as T1 and its keystone riddle piece are easily the most recognizable formation in the trail thus far. Subsequent riddles are written on scrap wood that I’ve collected in or around my neighborhood and/or home. After each teepee’s completion, riddle pieces are affixed by freestanding means or tied using twine and without the use of nails or similar fasteners.
Lastly, the City of Raleigh has my contact information on file and is aware that I DO NOT spray paint or cut any living trees as part of this project, and that I constantly “tend” the teepees for safety – no stick is gonna fall on a kid’s head if I can help it!
Since the beginning, my teepees have grown in color, number, size, popularity, and momentum—all through the virtues of patience and persistence. But the ball has been rolling especially fast lately, and thus my eagerness to move things forward has grown as well. However, and perhaps most importantly, I’ve stayed grounded to the roots from which this movement came, because after all they’re just sticks.
Support Teepee Trails on Kickstarter
I recently launched a Kickstarter campaign. This project could transform what was once just five sticks leaning against a tree into an organization committed to promoting community and inspiring creativity, at every age. It is with these ambitions in mind that I give my advance thanks for backing this project and hope that one day, my trail will soon make a stop in your town too!