Keeping Clean In The Woods

[RBB]

Just went out and built the sweat lodge for this year's deer hunt. We have several deer camps in the family, but they are 100 miles north, by the Canadian border, where my mother was born. We used to have a sauna at one of our deer camps, but someone stole the stove a few years ago - plus the wolves have moved into the area and deer have been a bit sparse around there. Some of the very best hunting is close to my home, so I don't usually head north anymore.

This year I'm hunting opening weekend on a friend's property. It is posted, so I'll be alone, and there are lots of deer.

After opening weekend, the hunters get a bit more sparse and I usually head down river, by canoe, and camp on the site of an 1820 fur post. We live on a lake connected to the river and it is just a few miles down river. Close enough to go home, if I feel like it, but far enough away to make me feel like I'm in the woods.

I build my sweat lodge using saplings and a tarp or a piece of poly. I heat the stones on a fire outside the sweat lodge and move them into the lodge using two deer antlers. It is a good way to relax after a day's hunt.

Here is a site that talks about building a sweat lodge:

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2006/7/22/225040/700

[crashdive123]

Sounds very interesting. Hope you take some pictures to show it off.

[Tony uk]

Very nice idea, cheers RBB for posting this :D

[wareagle69]

well ya got me thinkin son thats always a good thing

[chiye tanka]

Just went out and built the sweat lodge for this year's deer hunt. We have several deer camps in the family, but they are 100 miles north, by the Canadian border, where my mother was born. We used to have a sauna at one of our deer camps, but someone stole the stove a few years ago - plus the wolves have moved into the area and deer have been a bit sparse around there. Some of the very best hunting is close to my home, so I don't usually head north anymore.

This year I'm hunting opening weekend on a friend's property. It is posted, so I'll be alone, and there are lots of deer.

After opening weekend, the hunters get a bit more sparse and I usually head down river, by canoe, and camp on the site of an 1820 fur post. We live on a lake connected to the river and it is just a few miles down river. Close enough to go home, if I feel like it, but far enough away to make me feel like I'm in the woods.

I build my sweat lodge using saplings and a tarp or a piece of poly. I heat the stones on a fire outside the sweat lodge and move them into the lodge using two deer antlers. It is a good way to relax after a day's hunt.

Here is a site that talks about building a sweat lodge:

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2006/7/22/225040/700

We use blankets for ours, but the rest is the same. We use buffalo and white sage for our cerimony. It cleans inside and out.

[RBB]

We use blankets for ours, but the rest is the same. We use buffalo and white sage for our cerimony. It cleans inside and out.

For hunting - I just use the sweat lodge for relaxation and keeping clean. A sweat lodge ceremony is much different.

As to using blankets - blankets work just fine - maybe better than tarps - but they are too bulky to tote along in the canoe.

For a ceremonial sweat lodge (at least as my grandfather taught me) the saplings for the eastern side of the sweat lodge need to be gathered a certain distance to the east, the saplings for the western side - a certain distance to the west... etc. Prayers are required during the gathering. The door must face the east. The lashings need to be of wigoob, requiring more prayer during gathering - and each part of the ceremony has ritual - some dealing with creation - others with the future. Tobacco and sage are involved, having spiritual significance, and each physical feature, rocks, pit, saplings, and shape of the sweat lodge, represent different things from the creation of the world.

At any rate - it is a long drawn out affair, and all I'm looking for is a way to keep clean in the woods. It is perfectly okay to use a sweat lodge soley as a means to keep clean - without the ceremony. I face the door away from the wind - and as the wind is usually out of the west - I guess I'm okay on both counts.

[chiye tanka]

Yea, I'm the fire tender for our lodge. Down here we really don't use it to keep clean, but you're right on all counts.
If you don't mind me asking, what nation are you?