A Sauna, a Shed and a Ring

It has been a pretty busy construction season in Igloolik as Laura and I start getting ready for winter. My buddy Marty and I actually went through with our plan and built our Sauna.


Danny, Marty and myself putting the roof on the sauna. Construction was quick and the shell of the building was done within a day. Marty and I did a lot of the salvaging in June so we had most of the wood already. Danny helped everyday and he has a lifetime membership to the sauna.


This was as close to the construction as Laura got. She stepped in for a quick picture when our backs were turned. Once we got all of the walls and the ceiling built, we insulated the entire building with insulation we found at the dump. The walls, roof and floor are completely insulated.


The Sauna is built on skis so it can be towed around in the winter without a problem. We are pretty sure that it might take 2 machines to pull it since it weighs about 800 pounds. Everything was salvaged except for the stove, stove pipe, nails and hinges. The door you see was built and is fully insulated. It weighs about 50 pounds on its own and is hung with 4 hinges. Also, you can see that we have been getting a little bit of snow lately. It snowed everyday last week and our first snow was on September 4th. Pretty soon we will be able to jump in the snow after a sauna.


The pipe is firmly attached to the side. We might need to add another 2 feet to the stack to promote a more positive draft in the chimney but everything has been working great so far. The tin around the stove pipe is old heating duct that we bent and fitted into place.


Dan, Marty and myself enjoying the first sauna. We are pretty certain it is the only sauna to ever be in our community. It would be nice to have some cedar but it doesn't make sense to spend all of that money on shipping. The plywood seems to be doing a great job. We were not really sure if it was going to be hot enough but we soon found ourselves outside cooling down.


Marty cracking open the champagne. We kept the cork as a souvenir.


The Northern wood pile. We have been gathering lots of wood and putting it into boxes. The pallets make excellent firewood and very easy to cut with the saw. We even found a couple of hardwood pallets but we will save that wood for the extreme cold weather.


A view from the door. We have two wooden benches and can sit 8 people comfortably. All of this wood was salvaged from the dump and then planed at the school shop. The bottom bench is removable in case you want to put a table or use the building as an ice fishing shack. The thermometer on the wall didn't last too long. Mid-way through the first fire, it exploded and broke. We now have patches of red liquid on the wall and floor. I decided to order a real sauna thermometer from Finntastic in Thunder Bay and it should arrive shortly.


We made the rock cage from old wire that we found. This stove is top loading so it gets a little tricky with the rock placement but this setup seems to work. The metal behind the stove is metal roofing that we screwed in place. It does a pretty good job of protecting the wall. This little pot belly stove gets extremely hot. We get most of the steam from pouring the water on the chimney pipe going outside. Around the chimney pipe going through the wall, there is 4 layers of metal on each side and a very big airspace as well. We did the final seal with rope from an airtight stove.



Another view of the benches. The boards on the top bench were actually the pieces from the qamotiq (sled) that we took apart to use the skis. You also get a good view of the christmas lights that we use for lighting. We had a trouble light hanging from the ceiling but the girls complained it was too bright and that they would have to shave their legs every time they used the sauna.


This is the shed I built this year when I arrived. It's about 6 feet tall and big enough to fit the sled. We are planning on keeping both sheds. The other shed, which is down the street, will be used for storage of the machine that is not in use. This shed, right beside our door, will be nice to warm up the sled in the winter.


And finally, here is a picture of Laura's ring. The picture does not do it justice.