Wood-fired mobile sauna by Rob Licht Custom Saunas.
Although Glamping is a term that was coined in the early 2000s, the concept of an adventure in nature bolstered by all of the modern conveniences one could muster, or have mustered for them, has been around for well over a century and a half. In 1869, writer William H.H. Murray of Boston extolled on the virtues of experiencing the Adirondack backwoods in his book Adventures in the Wilderness. This inspired an avalanche of urban neophytes flocking to the woods in search of adventure and to commune with nature. These adventure seekers were known as “Murray’s fools.”
People traveled great distances and endured great hardships, such as days of travel over log roads (which were literally made of logs placed side by side) to get to the heart of the Adirondacks. Once they arrived, they sought out the services of guides, who did everything for them—transporting them in their guide boats, making camp, catching and cooking their meals. In essence, these early Glampers brought with them from the city every expectation of service they would get at the finest hotel.
“The mountains call you, and the vales: The woods, the streams, and each ambrosial breeze that fans the ever-undulating sky.”
—Armstrong, Art of Preserving Health
Glamping experience enhanced with a sauna (banya) in tow.
While part of me chuckles at the concept of Glamping with it’s pretense of tender-footedness, part of me is drawn to the concept of rustic luxury. Although I am as far from a camping neophyte as one can be, with years of deep woods experience and many a night sleeping on hard ground, the concept of luxury camping does have a certain appeal to me now. I’ll sleep in a tent on a platform—with lights and heat and maybe a commode. But better yet, with a sauna next to it.
The idea of communing with nature combined with sauna is perfection—and something, I bet, even the luckiest of Murray’s fools never had.
View of the mobile sauna looking out through the dressing room to the campsite. Pile of rocks sit on the Lämpimämpi stove.
Most people glorify the act of building, the transformation of a humble pile of building materials into a noble sauna or house or shed. I like to think that, too. I believe that my profession is a noble one, with an emphasis on craftsmanship and attention to detail that can only be honed by decades of working with fine materials. But the truth is, on any given day, on any given project—especially for on-site work where I take my tools and materials, my truck and trailer, my lunch and my laptop and various other accoutrements—I am often just a professional schlepper. And I bet any other contractor reading this just now nodded their head.
I love building saunas that are removed from the house, perhaps beyond the garden gates or down by the lake or out in the woods next to a pond. I like to work immersed in nature, take lunch by the water, and contemplate the finer things in life while I toil at my craft.
Sauna on a pond.Sauna on a lake.Sauna in the woods.
But when I bid jobs like these, I have learned to think of the schlep: The sum total distance from truck to the site. I think of thousands of steps back and forth to carry lumber, to retrieve the pencil or glasses from the cab, of the stairs I have to climb, or the potential for slipping and falling with a hundred pound load on my shoulder. I have literally carried an entire 8’x12′ sauna on my shoulders, load by load. Some days I count the steps and do the math—how many miles I wonder? Other times I count the load—a ton of concrete mix, how much work was that?
I don’t mind the schlep. The key is to embrace it. If I know from the scale of the schlep from start and plan for it—clear a path, remove obstacles, make ramps—then I can proceed slowly but with the steadiness of a Yoga master moving through a progression of poses. Each repeated carry is perfected in the same way a bobsled driver learns to lean through each curve.
With two or more people, it is a choreographed movement. Go left here, stoop here, K-turn at the end, and dosey-do before we enter the door. Perfecting the movement makes it almost enjoyable.
At sixty, I have to protect my body. I know my strengths and limits, and my strength is knowing how to carry and move heavy objects. Always keep one hand free—you never know when you’ll have to counter an off balance step. Always be relaxed and take smaller loads—there is no race. It is amazing what you can achieve in an hour of honest schlepping. Ironically, when I have a spell of days or weeks when my back is out and the chiropractor is needed, it’s always the stupid stuff that caused it: desk work (I stand at my desk now), shoveling snow, or that heroic effort to rake all the leaves in one Sunday. These tasks are unintentional actions. Work with intention, and you will become stronger. Work smarter, and you will avoid injury. I really like those sixty pound concrete bags… and I’m eyeing those forty pounders. At nineteen, everything came in hundreds.
Rob—der schlep.
I’ve had jobs where the schlep caught me off guard, like the sauna cabin in the woods where I was promised an ATV to haul everything. After the first week, three feet of snow put the brakes on that. Everything had to be hauled in on a sled with me in snowshoes. Good thing I loved those Jack London stories as a kid.
But then, I’ve been pleasantly surprised, too, like at a recent job on the lake where the haul was several hundred feet down steep stairs or a windy path. Eventually, the owners produced a golf cart. It became my mini truck and my morning joy, as I breezed down the hill silently. There is a beauty to electric vehicles—the joy of still hearing nature as you whizz through it.
I’ve thought of offering classes on schlepping or even rigging (a specialized form of schlep that involves more weight, more dance, more cooperation). We would move things each day. And then maybe move them back again. Everyone has it wrong about Sisyphus. If the enjoyment of the act of moving becomes the goal, rather than the completion of the act, then the schlepper can be seen as a master perfecting their craft. Like a cat that keeps hitting the toy away only to chase it again, a worker who carries load after load and enjoys the process will reach the goal of pleasure in their work.
And only when a worker enjoys his or her work is true craftsmanship possible.
Recently, I posted a picture of our sauna fire burning hot and mentioned Sam McGee. For those who don’t know, Sam McGee was the sad character from Tennessee who could not take the cold of the Yukon in the poem The Cremation of Sam McGee by Robert Service. His last wish was to be cremated, a task his friend dutifully tried to complete. The ending had the narrator peeking into the make-do crematorium in the boiler of the derelict ship stuck in the ice on Lake Lebarge. There was his late friend Sam McGee, as warm as could be, calling out for him to shut the door.
Whenever it is extremely cold out, as it has been recently, I think of this poem and the warming power of a hot fire. I love it when the mercury dips below zero. There is something invigorating about having your snot freeze when you breath hard or having sweat icicles dangling off of your brow. I love cross-country skiing in the dark, in the cold, when two hats and two pairs of gloves are needed. One false move, and the night might end like in the story “To Build a Fire” by Jack London. Another favorite read from Middle school when I dreamt of all the great explorers who ventured into frozen lands.
Walking through the snow towards a hot sauna fire.
I remember my senior year of high school, the year Cayuga Lake last froze over. That was a cold winter. We did a lot of cross-country ski races that season. With our skimpy race suits and lowtop boots, we had no protection other than the fire in our hearts to keep us from freezing to death. During the Canadian Ski Marathon that year it was minus 40° at the 8 a.m. start. Celsius and Fahrenheit. If you blinked too long, your eyes would literally freeze shut. Grandma volunteers would slap our cheeks at checkpoints to make sure we didn’t have frostbite (and we still wore our skimpy suits). By the end of that year, my parents had moved to the heart of the lower Adirondacks. The Black River valley, where our house was located, was often the coldest spot in the lower forty-eight. It was minus 25° F for days on end. Thunder boomed from the river each night as the ice expanded. The ice was several feet thick; I have no idea how the fish survived. I loved to be out in that hostile world: skating, skiing, or snowshoeing. It was the cold of a Jack London story. Your spit would freeze in mid air and hit the ground with a crackle.
During that cold winter in high school, I had a hot sauna to crawl into after our ski races. But not in the years after. When I moved back to the Finger Lakes after college, I went back to that sauna at Podunk, weekly, until I could build my own. I have kept up the ritual ever since. On these freezing nights it is never too cold for a sauna; in fact, I relish those times when one can experience the 200° (or more) difference, going from the hot room to the night air. Your feet freeze to the ground and your hair sports punk icicles.
There’s no need to wait until you are cremated to be truly warm. Poor Sam McGee, if only he had a sauna!.
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