Age: 42

Hometown: Grass Valley, CA

Profession: Ancestral Skills Teacher

Woniya Thibeault grew up in the Sierra Nevada foothills of California. Spending a lot of time hiking these mountains, Woniya developed a deep love and curiosity for the natural world. Learning ancestral skills was the perfect way to combine her naturalist expertise with her love of crafting and gathering from the wild with her own two hands.

She has held many roles, working as a naturalist, off-grid farmer, skills teacher, and many others, her work experiences spanning across many different environments.  Teaching has been a constant passion for Woniya, having held classes on ancestral skills including fiber arts, hide tanning, clothing making, basketry, and wild foods harvest and prep.

Woniya currently teaches classes and workshops through her business, Buckskin Revolution and she’s near the completion of her first book on making buckskin clothing. Woniya believes in the coexistence of humans and nature and she comes to Alone both to test her skills and to demonstrate what is possible when one approaches survival from a place of respect, connection, and interdependence.

Here are the ten items Woniya selected to bring on her survival journey to the Arctic:

1. Sleeping bag
2. Pot
3. Ferro rod
4. Knife
5. Bow and arrows
6. Saw
7. Multitool
8. Fishing line and hooks
9. Paracord
10. Emergency ration