The author of “Babe in the Woods: Building a Life One Log at a Time” will speak at libraries on the North Olympic Peninsula.
Yvonne Pepin-Wakefield will speak about her memoir about living alone in the Oregon wilderness at the Port Townsend Library, Charles Pink House at 1256 Lawrence St., at 2 p.m. Sunday; at the Port Angeles Library, 2210 S. Peabody St., at 6:30 p.m. Monday and the Sequim Library, 630 N. Sequim Ave., at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Pepin-Wakefield tells of setting out to build a home from trees on 80 acres she purchased on an Oregon mountainside in 1974 when she was 18.
Log by log, she created a cabin and healed from an orphaned past, finding a new family in the forest and with people in a valley named John Day, she said.
“This true story of one woman’s survival in the wilderness puts an honest and gritty face on the fantasy of living alone in the forest,” library officials said in a news release.
“Readers of ‘My Side of the Mountain’ and ‘Into the Wild’ — and fans of ‘Pilgrim at Tinker Creek’ and ‘Walden’ alike — will eagerly follow along on the journey through this candid, revealing account.”
The book includes original artwork and ledgers, further authenticating the construction of this three-story log cabin built by hand from trees on land she still owns today.
It is the first in a three-book series about Pepin-Wakefield’s time living in this log cabin beside a mountain stream.
Pepin-Wakefield is a former resident of Port Townsend and an art specialist for Sequim School District.
She has published and exhibited her work around the world, and has received wide recognition for her work in art education — including a Fulbright Memorial Fellowship and a Robert Rauschenberg Arts Education Award.
In addition to “Babe in the Woods,” Pepin-Wakefield is also the author of “Suitcase Filled with Nails: Lessons Learned from Teaching Art in Kuwait.”
