Sauna culture coming to Lansing speaker series

Longtime Lansing resident, sauna expert and multitalented artist Rob Licht, standing alongside Scarlet Duba, will host a public sauna event and conversation about saunas’ cultural significance June 2 as part of the Salt Point speaker series.

The event will feature one of Licht’s custom-built mobile saunas — which he says remain popular years after they became a hot commodity during the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown — and will give attendees the chance to take in what Licht describes as a very relaxing communal activity. 

Licht has been building saunas for almost 30 years, a love that started in Podunk. There, he grew up skiing and spending time bathing in the sauna at a local ski shop.

“Saunas are a very traditional thing that is very community oriented,” he said. “It’s about bathing and taking in nature.”

Attendees will get to experience a traditional Finnish sauna, which typically harnesses the power of dry heat. These saunas are typically made out of wood and can have benches lining the sides at different heights. Saunas also have a heater, typically on the inside. 

“I built them like little houses, you know, with siding and everything and all the same detailing,” Licht said. “It’s hot, but it is airy. It’s not stuffy, but there is light coming in.”

The steam from the sauna comes from the heater, which heats up rocks. 

“Then you throw water on the rocks,” he added .”You have got to have a good heater with a good supply of rocks. That’s what really gives saunas the proper heat. The rocks are like 450 degrees. They radiate a soft heat. It is not like sitting in front of a wood stove or a fireplace.”

Licht turned to building saunas in 1995, after working in contracting for a few years. He has been taking sauna baths for about 50 years. Beyond that, he is an artist, builder, visual thinker and Nordic skier.

Licht has a master of fine arts degree from Cornell University and has been a practicing artist and instructor at institutions such as Ithaca College for the past 30 years.

“Taking after some of the many Finns who settled in the Finger Lakes region, my childhood friends and I adopted the sauna as a way of life,” Licht said in a press release promoting the event.

For Licht, saunas are just natural, refreshing and somewhat ritualistic.

“It was just such a simple, simple thing,” he said. “There is a certain ritual to it. Just bathing and cleaning yourself up in the sound. It just feels so good.”

Over time, saunas became much more than a lifestyle for Licht.

“We have a bunch of competitors online and popping up everywhere; it’s become a big thing,”  Licht said. “I pride myself in that we started the mobile sauna revolution in the U.S. We were one of the first. I’ve been doing this for a long time, and there’s only a handful of us in the entire country that have been making saunas for as long as I have.”

The event is made possible by Friends of Salt Point, a local nonprofit. It will take place at the Salt Point Natural Area on Salt Point Road on June 2 at 4:30 p.m. The rain check rescheduling date is June 11 at 5:30 p.m. Attendees are encouraged to bring a lawn chair, a water bottle, their swimsuit and a towel free of perfumed detergents, according to a press release issued by Friends of Salt Point.

Lansing at Large appears every week in Tompkins Weekly. Send story ideas to editorial@vizellamedia.com. Contact Eddie Velazquez at edvel37@gmail.com or on X (formerly Twitter) @ezvelazquez.

In brief

Summer fun in the town of Lansing

The town of Lansing is gearing up for a summer full of recreational activities for area residents. Registration is now open for summer programs. For inquiries about adult exercise classes, interested parties can dial 607-533-7388 to receive more information.

Music in the Park, a popular concert series at Myers Park, also starts July 11 and runs through Aug. 22, every Thursday night at 6:30 p.m.