The only wood Hemmo didn’t mill himself is the tongue-and-groove cedar that lines the sauna. “The wedding was fast- approaching and it was crunch time,” he says. By then, he had already painstakingly bent one long cedar branch into a safety railing for the woodstove. “I cut it a bit longer than I needed, then put a ratchet strap on both ends, and hung it off the dock, in the water, like a hunter’s bow,” he says. “Every morning for two weeks I’d go out and tighten it up a bit. You have to bend it past the curve you need, because it’ll have some springback. Then I let it dry in the sun for a few days, cut the notches, forced it into place, and held it there with dowels.” His family bought him the purpose-built stove, called a kiaus, which heats the sauna to 80°C, the magic number, in about 40 minutes. Hemmo built the L-shaped benches so they can slide up and out for an annual scrubbing. Now, all that’s left to do is enjoy the sauna. “When I go up to the cottage, I have a hard time relaxing,” he says. “I’m always doing something. So after a long day, there’s nothing I love more than going for a steam…then a swim, another steam, maybe a beer in the recovery room, and repeat.”