Building an Alaskan Wilderness Sauna

In the summer of 2009 my daughter Ellie and her friend Jackie visited our cabin on the Nelchina River. They took a sauna in the evening. When Ellie exited the sauna she noticed a smell which reminded her of distant forest fires she had smelled in the past. She investigated but didn't find anything. She and Jackie returned to the cabin and eventually went to sleep.

Her surmise was logical. That summer was a dry one. There had been several forest fires in interior Alaska. Unfortunately, the smell was not from distant fire; it was from a smolder in the sod roof, a smolder which grew. . . . and grew. . . . . . . and GREW. At 2 the fire ignited the propane bottle on the sauna porch and a Hollywood blast shook the forest and nearby cabin, awakening Ellie. Photons from the fireball passed through the cabin windows, reflected off the cabin's walls and landed on Ellie's retinas.

She did not panic.

The rest of this story is told in pictures. Ellie and Jackie spent that night and most of the next day putting out outlier fires and digging a trench to the mineral earth. Late the next evening, they finished their job, saving the cabin and forest.

Home

While it is fun to plan and haul, it is most enjoyable to build. During the week of July 4th, Kee and I spent eight days at the cabin. The first sauna work performed was the installation of a window. I had purchased an entry door sidelight window at the Habitat for Humanity Resale Store for $30. My plan was to install it horizontally so you could look over your shoulder while on the upper sauna bench and see Heavenly Ridge. The first step of installation was to locate the four corners for a cutout allowing such viewing, and then to drill a hole at each of the corners.

Then I marked the lines for cutting with duct tape.

And used a jig saw to cut off the exterior metal skin.

I then finished the cutout with a sawzall and installed the window.

Here is the view from the upper sauna bench as you take a sauna.

The next day I started work on the dressing room. The foundation for two of the corners were the poured concrete footings I built last summer. For the other two corners I decided to use some rocks I had picked up when dipnetting in Chitina and hauled in during a Winter hauling trip. I'd used these for building the "Cowboy Kitchen" and had leftovers I plan to use in other creative ways. I selected from these for the two footers.

I dug down to the clay and then placed flat rocks, adding logs and shims until all was level. If things move out of level in the future I will add and subtract shims as necessary.

I then built the dressing room deck.

After finishing the floor I measured, cut and placed four corner supports and framed the rafters:

With some help from Kee, the rafter assembly was slid into place.

Next to go up was a door - the door frame and door had been separately scavenged, so I had to redo the hinges.

Our neighbor and good friend, Carl Markon, had given us some windows a few years back. We installed one of them on the south wall of the dressing room.

Here's the view from inside:

I next took a couple of screens which our neighbors had placed with the trash a couple of years ago. I rescued them, stored them in my garage and then hauled them in last Spring.

The next morning I placed the cross pieces on the rafters to which the Ondura roofing would be nailed.

Then the roofing was placed.

Next was a window on the north wall of the dressing room (also courtesy of Carl).

Here's the view from inside:

Next I hauled the cedar siding piles from where they had been placed during the Spring hauling trip to locations closer to the sauna.

Poppy decided this was a good occasion for a nap.

After the piles had been moved, I decided that the pallet they had been placed on (left over from the shipping of the SIP panels) would make a nice start to a deck for the dressing room. So I built one. . . .

And put Bodil, our sauna gnome, on it to welcome all.

That evening, as we sat watching the late day sun on Heavenly Ridge, we decided the space was too nice to be just a sauna dressing room, so we now call it the porch. We brought out the card table and a couple of chairs, played cribbage and had dinner.