It may feel like spring in the mid-Atlantic USA where we write from, but for much of the frozen north, winter events are just getting started. What better way to warm up at one of these events than to enjoy a sauna, made from ice.
A quirk of physics is that ice works as an excellent insulator: A sauna can be built of ice blocks that has an interior temperature of nearly 100°C / 212°F, yet the ice will not immediately melt. See this video for more information.
The BP World Ice Art Championships, presented by Ice Alaska, are taking place this month in Fairbanks Alaska. More than 70 teams of ice carvers are producing works of art from blocks of ice harvested from a nearby lake. As part of the festivities, a team from Finland has carved a working sauna from ice. Our emails to the organizers for more information on the sauna have gone unanswered to date. We hope to get some more information for you about the sauna.
The Ice Alaska festival remains open until March 27, 2011. Admission is $10 for the day, $25 for a season pass.
In Sinettä, Finland, the Snow Hotel offers its guests the opportunity to enjoy their Snow Sauna carved from ice and snow. Rooms at the hotel are € 120 per night, based on double occupancy.
Update: Just for you Glenn, here is a video of a Finnish Ice sauna in action. Enjoy.
Czech architecture firm H3T has designed two new mobile saunas that you can take with you.
In October of 2010, they built a transportable sauna. Looking at the photos on their website, it appears large enough to hold eight very good friends. The sauna was built on a used car trailer from plywood and plastic panels for the long walls and roof. When finished, you can tow it away with you. The architects do not recommend using the sauna while driving.
In February 2011, they created a new transportable sauna design more suited to the urban european: The Bike Sauna. This two person sauna is small enough to be towed behind a bicycle.
Both are heated with wood-fired stoves. For more inspiration, see their Floating Sauna and Flying Sauna. H3T has more action photos on their Facebook page.
We happened across this comic from Scandinavia and the World, drawn by Humon, a twentysomething Dane. She’s drawn a comic with the normally reclusive, mute and knife-weiding Finland hosting his neighbors, Sweden, Norway and Denmark for an authentic sauna session.
It goes to show that not all Scandinavians think the same about the best way to enjoy a sauna as the Finns.
Entries (RSS)
