Guides Gone Wild

From Side Hustle to Hot Business: Jackie Stratton, Cedar Grove Sauna

• Guides Gone Wild

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The last few weeks I’ve enjoyed checking in with some of my guests from WAY BACK - like, 2020-2021 - to find out what they’re up to now, and I've been reveling in all the growth and expansion (and sometimes pivoting!) that’s occurred since our initial conversations.

Today is no exception - I’m checking back in with Jackie Stratton, a registered Maine guide who featured prominently in the early days of the podcast. Jackie first shared her guiding origin story in January 2021, and she was one of the awesome panelists for our "Maine Guide Q&A"  in May of 2021.

But fast forward 2+ years. While Jackie's interest in the outdoors hasn’t waned, her business interests have completely refocused as a result of the overwhelming success of what started out as a side hustle, to keep some cash coming in during the off season.

Cedar Grove Sauna is now actually THREE saunas: two anchored in beautiful spots on Jackie and her partner Nate’s sprawling homestead property in Montville, Maine; and a third that’s a modified horse trailer, that Jackie tows around mid-coast Maine and plants for days at a time in spectacular waterfront spots.

Jackie and I talk about the explosion of her sauna business, how it’s impacted her guiding, and why she spent six weeks in Europe this summer in various states of undress. How’s that for a teaser?!? Listen in for all the steamy stuff!

You're going to want to take advantage of one of Cedar Grove Sauna’s Summer Tuesdays, or be among the first to know about the where/when of Jackie’s mobile sauna season coming up, so you absolutely MUST sign up for the Cedar Grove Sauna email list over at CedarGroveSauna.com.

And of course, a few more hot links from our convo:

Jen:

I shouldn't probably ask you a question like oh, do you hate your business yet? Because that was kind of like.

Jackie Stratton:

I think that's a fair question. I don't hate it yet.

Jen:

Welcome to the Guides Gone Wild podcast. What is Guides Gone Wild, you ask? This is where you'll fill your ears and minds with the stories of everyday extraordinary women who inspire you to take your outdoor adventure game to the next level. Whether you're starting your journey from the couch or the trailhead, this is the place for you. So let's get a little wild.

Jen:

Welcome or welcome back to Guides Gone Wild. For those of you who might be relatively new here, my name is Jen. This is the podcast I started way back in 2020, early COVID on which I talked to amazingly inspiring everyday women who are doing cool things in the outdoors. I'm glad you're here and hope that you'll hit, follow or subscribe so you don't miss out on any of the epic guests I have. Coming up Today is a continuation of the mood of introspection retrospection that I've been in lately.

Jen:

The last few weeks I've really been enjoying checking in with some of my guests from way back like 2020, 2021, to see what they're up to now, and have been reveling in all the growth and expansion and sometimes pivoting that's occurred since our initial conversations. Last time out I talked to Paige Emerson of Chubby Hiker Reviews, who's been going through her own quiet and introspective times lately, but she has emerged with a renewed energy. We got talking about her expanding Chubby Hiker Enterprise, including new chapters around New England and some fun events and trips she's cosponsoring this summer. After I posted that episode, I then spent a weekend back at the Bigger and Better Rooted Mountain Bike Festival with Heather Kinnell For a taste of rooted goodness. Go back and listen to my episode with her in January 2022 and my two recaps of last year's rooted experience that I recorded in August 2022. Let's just say that I left the rooted weekend with several more amazing women in my interviewing crosshairs, so stay tuned Now.

Jen:

Finally, today I'm checking back in with Jackie Stratton, a registered main guide, who featured prominently in the early days of the podcast. We talked about her guiding origin story back in January 2021 and she was one of the awesome panelists for the how to Become a Mean Guide Q&A that I hosted back in May of 2021. But fast forward two plus years. While her interest in the outdoors hasn't waned, her business interests have completely refocused as a result of the overwhelming success of what started out as a side hustle to keep some cash coming in in the offseason. Cedar Grove Sauna is now actually three Saunas two housed in beautiful spots on Jackie and her partner, nate's sprawling homestead property in Montville, maine, and the third that's a modified horse trailer that Jackie tows around mid coast Maine and plants for days at a time in also spectacular waterfront spots. Today we're going to talk about the explosion of Jackie's business, how it's impacted her guiding and why she spent six weeks in Europe this summer in various states of undress. How's that for a teaser? So let's get into all the steamy stuff with Jackie Stratton of Cedar Grove Sauna.

Jen:

I'm just going to throw on the recorder and dive right in because I'm so excited to be catching up with Jackie Stratton today formerly of Waterways Guiding, but no more which is why I reached out to her, because I was all of a sudden. I was like, yeah, you're right, I haven't seen a post from Waterways in so long because you're so damn busy with your sauna and it's amazing. And now you have three. You're taking over the world, literally because you spent most of the summer so far in Europe furthering your boundless knowledge about sauna.

Jen:

I mean, I like literally, was going back and reading all of the posts that you put up back in May when you hosted the international bathmasters trainings at Cedar Grove Sauna in Montville, maine, of all places, and like literally every single one. It was just like this little information jacked little post that I learned all kinds of cool stuff about Latvia and Lithuania and whisks not just for scrambled eggs anymore. So I want you to talk about all of these things. What I know. The decision was made a while ago to back off the guiding and double down on the sauna, mostly because you got so darn busy, I would imagine. But tell me, walk me through that progression a little bit yeah.

Jen:

I welcome back, by the way, thank you.

Jackie Stratton:

Great to be here.

Jen:

So good to see you again.

Jackie Stratton:

The last few years have been a bit of a blur for me, so I'm going to recount. It's 2023 now, at the beginning of 2022. I realized I had this time constriction and I start my guiding season every year doing two weeks of whitewater canoe instruction for the local midco school technology. It's like a tech program that my friend Seth runs and I was teaching that and spending like six hours with them and then coming home and spending about eight hours running sauna business and like having literally to like leave those students and run back and get the fire started and was realizing that things were getting a little crazy. And the sauna business has just been successful and growing and I think I've found the key to what everybody thinks is the best situation ever, which is working a lot in the cold months and having summers off, and so that could have paired well with sauna in the winter and guiding in the summer. But why? Why, right?

Jen:

Why would you have to work 157 hours a day, year round, right?

Jackie Stratton:

And so I work a lot of hours in the winter and I think I've found it's like anybody running their own business like you have friendships that just get put on the back burner.

Jackie Stratton:

Unfortunately, I don't go to social things because I'm working when most people are getting together, and so I wanted to be able to really be present in summer, and part of that is traveling internationally or within the same continent. Last summer I went on a six week trip, as well as this summer going to Europe. So I chose to stop guiding, and I sat on that decision for about a year, and just a few weeks ago I was feeling burdened by the stuff, because the first several years of guiding, every dollar I made I just invested in gear, and so I'm really geared up to do like a 16 person backcountry canoe trip and I'm still doing a lot of canoeing and doing trips with friends but I only need stuff for maybe six people, and so last week I sold pretty much everything and that felt awesome. So now I will spend a little bit of that money investing in other random hobbies like snorkeling and boogie boarding Nice.

Jen:

Yes, well, that's, and that's part of it. You spent quite a bit of time out on the coast last summer season, so maybe give us an update too on it's not just. I think when I first talked to you, you were finishing up the mobile sauna, which I got to see in person when I dragged my friends up to your place in December of whenever, that was 2020 to maybe 21 2021.

Jen:

Holy crap, yeah right, and we, we actually went and spent a weekend at the chicken barn your little fun Airbnb that's up there and we did some saunas at the OG sauna and it was awesome and we got to see where you were at with the mobile sauna. Yeah, I think you know what. Actually, I think you had just put the, you had just gotten the heat source and had just installed it.

Jen:

Then I remember I took some pictures of it, but that you didn't stop there, because not only did the mobile sauna come to fruition and you started traipsing it all over the place, but then also you just finished a second sauna at Montville. So yeah, give us a whole rundown of what made you decide to expand. Or was that always in the in the cards?

Jackie Stratton:

I'm somebody who gets bored if I'm not starting a new project, and so a little bit of business advice that I need to give myself is to remember to pay myself and not just invest everything in new infrastructure, although and maybe the last time we interviewed, I shared that bit of knowledge that someone else gave me of invest everything into your business the first few years, and I'm doing it, and at some point I'm going to remember to pay myself. So I yeah, I have big goals and dreams that are going to go way beyond what I'm doing right now, and so every year I've been in business so far, built a new sauna, and I don't think I'm doing that this year, but I am going to be doing some other secret stuff in the background. Yeah, it's.

Jackie Stratton:

I started off building the mobile sauna in 2020 and I kind of lost steam with it. I was really up against myself because I was doing all the carpentry myself and I had zero experience, and we happen to have a sauna on site. That was my partner's previous partner, so. So I got permission from her and I just decided to open the business there and kind of stopped working on the mobile sauna for a little bit. So I then got momentum to work on that. Also, I had to give her the new the her sauna back, and so I had to build a replacement and so that next year I really I guess I kind of built two saunas in one year and next year I might build another one and then the next year maybe another one.

Jen:

Yeah, and I love that the new one has like a view. I was looking at the pictures. I'm like super excited. Not that I mean the one that we were in was great, because it definitely it was the coziest. It was just such a lovely, dark, dim, you know, flickering beautiful experience for that time of year. But I can also see how having a window out of your beautiful property will be lovely too and it is pretty amazing.

Jen:

The other thing that just struck me today was reading through all of the stuff with the International Bath Academy and all the different things you've learned about sauna over the time that you've been doing this. Like when you think about the fact that, like you started this out by like taking books out of the library and then you know, and now you're embedded in Finland and Lithuania and whatever, and you know learning with all these people who are just so passionate about it and you picking up so much information and skills and knowledge and wisdom and whatever you're it's, it's amazing to me. So I mean, tell me a little bit about this experience of summer, like how much of that was planned and how much of it just kind of developed organically once you decided to go to Europe.

Jackie Stratton:

I had planned. The first maybe nine days I was, I went back to study with Rims and Brute, the Lithuanian bathmaster teachers, and so I was in a couple different programs there. The first one was their annual summer plants camp and people came from maybe 10 different countries, including Lithuania, and turns out it was mostly women who run sauna businesses around the world. So it was just an amazing opportunity to network, and those individuals and the instructors kind of shepherded me through my travels by providing me with contacts of folks.

Jackie Stratton:

I probably have a list of like 60 people that I should have contacted, but really I only had time to reach out to maybe like 15, 20 of them, and everywhere I went, people just connect me with other folks. So I went with a one way ticket and I had. My only constraint is that I have a dog that several different people were taking care of, and so it came on to like three weeks and I still hadn't booked a return ticket and I had said I was going to be gone for four weeks, and so I reached out to with my primary dog people and pleaded for a few more weeks. Yeah, and I had plans of traveling up to Finland and that's what I did, and I just I did not have specific plans of who I was going to see, so it all just unfolded and I got a backstage pass to sauna culture in all those countries and it was incredible.

Jen:

Yeah. So tell me a little bit. What are a few things that maybe you didn't expect to kind of glean or pick up while you were there, but that you came back and like, or like, I'm getting this, I'm going to integrate this into what I'm doing and me.

Jackie Stratton:

Yeah, one thing that is not surprising at all but I really appreciated was the element of water. So in my son is the two fixed on is here where I live in Montville, are designed to have a lot of water, so like water over the head. The mobile sauna is not designed like that, so I really like being able to have lots of water and then I have a tub outside that you've probably experienced, that is filled with the spring water from the land here. That's it's really cold in the winter and that's great and it's a safe experience for people and people can relate to a bathtub. However, being able to swim in wild water in between hot rounds is amazing, and I know that from the mobile sauna.

Jackie Stratton:

I only bring the mobile sauna to places with water where people can get in, and so not all of the son as I went to were on water, but a lot of them were even ones in the cities, and I'd love to figure out how to provide more of that for people, and it doesn't necessarily need to be me in my business.

Jackie Stratton:

I'm doing that, but in specifically in Finland, a lot of the public zones are on public land and they're either like nonprofit run or it's a private business or like a club that runs us on and they just have a long term lease there. And we are funny in this country about public or, sorry, private activities on public land. And of course most of the waterfront is either privately owned and nobody's allowed to access it or it's like the town waterfront public landing and so trying to figure out how to provide, how to create enough education and experience and culture that it really makes sense to enough people to get something like that permitted. And it's happening in some places a little bit in this country, but not necessarily here yet, and so I haven't quite figured out how that's all going to happen, but I was really inspired by it.

Jen:

Well, and given your tracker herd, if anyone can figure it out, it will be you. I mean, you'll just like go to a few libraries. Me like? I have the solution. We're so freaking litigious in this country. This probably, you know, somebody would sue somebody and then all the fun would be over, but I think that's a a very lovely thing to think about doing so. Tell me about whisking, because I'm like intrigued by this. I think that it could feel really good. Yeah, what is a whisk?

Jackie Stratton:

a whisk is a word that some people use to describe it. In finish they might say vita, I think in Russian, venek, and Different words in different languages. But I like whisk it's. Someone describe it to me as it's a non political word, whereas some of those other like in the Baltic there's a lot of feuds between maybe neighboring countries, and so they don't want to use a word that is political. So whisk is just like an English word.

Jackie Stratton:

It's random, it's something to use in the kitchen, but it is a bundle of small twigs with branches Sorry, leaves typically and the most predominant one is birch, and so the best time to harvest the branches for the whisks is around now, like summer solstice to mid July, and you want to get branches from younger trees and you, of course, need to be able to reach them. So if they're shorter, you can reach them and you bind them with string, and so you have this clump of branches and anybody can make a whisk. But you need to know what you're doing to make a really good whisk and you can use them fresh. That's, of course, the best time to use them, but you can also dry them or preserve them in other ways so that you can use them in the way you can use them in the winter. You can rehydrate them and like have a fresh smelling tree in the winter, and so they are used to move heat and steam to different parts of the body and you can do a lot of whisking without even touching somebody. You're just heat and steam rise and if you raise those whisks up, you're just heating those up and then you can put, do compresses on, like your hips, if your hips are, and you can move that steam around. So you just get ways of like comfort around your body. And then of course you can whisk somebody's body, and I think in Maine there's a lot of people who are into trees, there's a lot of people who are into herbalism and more and more there are a lot of people who are into sonas, and so I think Bringing plants into that space makes sense and plants have always been used in sonas.

Jackie Stratton:

We've just several cultures have either lost that connection or they've had it all along and they're just still been waiting to tell the rest of the world that you should have plants in sona. And so in Lithuania I was doing, I completed my level two training and then passed my level test to do treatments to other people, and so their flow of sona follows the seasons, and so winter is the time of hibernation, it's gentle. Spring, you're awakening the senses. Summer it's like full on, not party, but something like that. And then fall you're like wrapping things up and bringing, bringing it full circle, and so, and then the sona follow those four seasons and what you do to people and with the plants follows that as well. So it's a full sensory experience and it can be really gentle and it can be really vigorous and it's customized to what what people need.

Jen:

And so yeah, and so they're. They're sounding year round up there, right, just prime is that you think it's just because there are all these, because there's like a spectrum of what that experience is in those countries, or just because it's just flat out not as hot as it is maybe here?

Jackie Stratton:

Yeah, good question. They were all shocked that I closed down for the summer and they're like why? And I closed down the summer? For multiple reasons. One is to have a break and I would still have customers in the summer but, like in the winter, I'm fully booked most of the winter, so it makes less sense to be open when I'm only like 20% booked. And so right now I'm actually going to be open just for Tuesdays for the next month as like a little trial and teaser.

Jackie Stratton:

If I wanted to be open in the summer, I think I would really need to like market that and convince them that it's a good idea because it's hot, it's humid here. I think they not everywhere I went has whisking culture, but they all had son a culture. And if you have a cold water source to cool down and why not? And it's still really relaxing in the summer, it's still going to be 90 degrees out, but it's still going to be 160 7080 in the sauna and when you come out it's going to feel cooler. And when you're done your son a session, you go to bed and you wake up the next day. You're going to be more acclimated to heat.

Jackie Stratton:

I think my body does a really good job in winter, and in summer and winter I barely wear a coat because I'm just like a hot body person, but in the summer, I don't know I maybe I sweat a lot, but I cool down very easily because I saw a lot and, yeah, it's just part of their culture and they might take three hours to sauna and there might be like a picnic and a barbecue involved in that as well. Hang out with your friends after work, and so why not? It's beautiful out, so it allows you to like spend more time on cool down, spend more time enjoying being outside with your friends.

Jen:

So let's talk about the community aspect of this, because I know that that's kind of one of the things that hooks, hooked you in in the first place is, you know, creating an experience around a community or for community.

Jen:

And obviously you're integrating your local community quite a bit and what you're doing is between the artisans and the you know and people helping you out. You've got some people who work for you during the busy season because they can't imagine how much would stacking and cutting and everything else that you must have to do, even just for the two to three. And you do community. You have community sauna evenings where it's just a bunch of random I use strangers loosely because I'm sure they all know each other at this point who come and you know, commune together and do a song together. And have you seen that change over time as everyone's gotten used to you being there and like, are people more you know, open to that? I mean, I feel like culturally we were in this country we're moving more and more toward everyone in their own space and so it's nice to see these things popping up that are bringing strangers back together again maybe. But any anything you've noticed on that as you've kind of grown the business people getting a little less weird about it.

Jackie Stratton:

Yeah, I only just started doing the community sessions. I think I'm going to be calling them public sessions. I only started last fall because I started during COVID. Nobody wanted to sauna with strangers and it took a little while to gain some momentum. And something I did that was very popular is I offered a queer community session a couple times a month and those are just immensely popular. I feel like I could offer one like every other day and figuring out if there are any groups of people who might be less comfortable coming to a public session and providing a session for them. I only did one bigger bodies community session this spring, but that was awesome and that everyone who came loved it and want to do more in the fall when I opened back up.

Jackie Stratton:

I guess another thing that was surprising to me when I traveled was a nudity piece, and so people come to the son is here in Montville with their private groups can be naked, and a lot of Americans are very squeamish about that because we don't have many times or places where they're naked with anyone other than a sexual partner. And then my public sessions were naked as well and I invited people before they came to say whether or not they're comfortable with anybody being naked, and if someone said no, then everyone were bathing suit, and I asked a lot of people in my travels about this, because most son is there they're either mixed, they're all gender, is everyone together or their men's, woman separate, and then you can be naked. But the ones where everyone's together, you're in a bathing suit and, as you know, I'm like very pro body positivity and like breaking the stereotypes of what bodies should look like, and so I found out that mixed groups are often in bathing suits. They're typically not naked, and something that several people said is I don't know who's not coming because I don't want to see someone else's xyz and I think I'm going to make everyone were bathing suits now in public sessions because I think that will provide an opportunity for more people to even consider coming, and so I think that's not.

Jackie Stratton:

I think you could look at it as like a marketing thing, like I want more people to come so I make more money. No, I want more people to come so they can benefit from sauna and maybe consider building their own someday or something, and so I think that's a huge barrier for people, and in some sound cultures around the world there's so much pro nudity that I think a lot of people are turned away, like in a lot of sounds in Germany. I've never been there, but I've been told that you are not allowed to wear a bathing suit, and so someone might show up there and be so disgusted and not enter because they don't have that option. So that's something that I'm going to integrate and hopefully everyone's okay with it.

Jen:

I think I can even considered like showing up at a public sauna with no clothes on and or have somebody's junk on the bench next to me.

Jackie Stratton:

That I didn't anticipate, but now I guess I gotta wrap my head around that and stop being such a Karen, obviously so In my background in the like son culture that I've been in the last 12, 13 years has been very naked and I'm comfortable with that and I was thinking that that was beneficial for people to have the opportunity to see other people's bodies, and I think it is really beneficial, but I'd rather people come than sit at home and worry about someone else's.

Jen:

Yeah, sit at home wondering how you, how you will kind of innocent. You use in between. Yeah, Like, oh, who's been sitting on this place and I'm about to put my head, but anyway, you brought up a point that I wanted to actually ask you about how many people that you know or know of you think have gone and bought or built a sauna because of you and the experience that you are bringing to them.

Jackie Stratton:

I'm not going to claim the reason why they did it, but I know that probably at least 40 people who have come and saunaed here have gone and built their own that I know of. I, of course, have no way of tracking 95% of people who come here, but people some people are proud enough to email me afterwards and send photos and sometimes invite me to have a sauna at their house. So if anyone's listening and they have a sauna, I'll come over.

Jen:

I think that's another whole. Yeah, that's another whole thing. This should be a whole. Other aspect to this community is like reciprocal, reciprocal saunaying, like a progressive dinner, Like okay, this week we're going to yours and yours and yours, and then next week we're going to yours and yours and yours. That would be pretty amazing, especially up there where it's just so beautiful to be driving around. And speaking of that, let's talk mobile sauna. How did you find places that would let you park? And was it easy or was it not so easy? And how did you even come up with them in the first place?

Jackie Stratton:

It's easy and not easy I am. Before I did this, I was in land conservation and I was very comfortable making maps using GIS data from the state and just studying printed maps as well, and so I did a lot of that. I spent a lot of like three AMs on Google maps just scanning the coast of Maine.

Jen:

I am not I forgot, you used to work for the land, trust and stuff. So yeah, cause I'm like it's so rocky up there, like you know when you're talking about going from the sauna in. It's like okay, what are people going to do with their feet?

Jackie Stratton:

Right. So we have tides here, of course, and a lot of the coast is either too rocky or it's too mudflatty during most of the tide, and so, yeah, it's tricky to find places, and I have reached out to some places.

Jackie Stratton:

Sometimes it's customers of mine that I'm like oh, you should reach out to so-and-so, or I work at this place and I there's one place I cold called and it was successful. Everywhere else I did, it was not successful, and I stopped doing that a year or two ago. The only place that was successful was and Popham Beach, at Spinney's, and I sent them an email, heard no response. But in the email I said if I don't hear from you, I'm going to be coming back through in October and I'm gonna stop by. And I stopped by and they were just so positive and they apologized for not responding, and so that's one of my two most popular locations and so maybe cold calling works, but really it main needs like insiders, and so I need someone I know who understands saunas to tell someone that I'm not gonna break stuff, that people aren't gonna like get drunk and die and that my son is not gonna set their land on fire, cause that's a big fear of people's that it's just gonna spontaneously combust.

Jen:

Oh really, oh my gosh, I wouldn't have thought the other things, I would not have thought like a fire risk. I don't know, maybe because I've seen your construction and I know how tight and awesome it is. Thank you.

Jackie Stratton:

For me, one of the most important things is it needs to be sustainable for me, so I need to be able to be comfortable. Before I started I just pictured myself on these like deserted beaches, but like what do I do with my body when people are in there? And so everywhere I go has a building with heat that I get to hang out and do other computer related work. So it's been tricky to find places, but at this point I feel like I have enough places, although every year I, like every few months, I go on a little road trip and literally drive the coast of Maine and look for other spots. I'm not opposed to freshwater by any means, but the tricky thing is that of course, freeze is over in the winter and at this moment I'm not going to be bringing my chainsaw and cutting home ice for people, so that could be a shoulder season if I had the right location.

Jen:

Right, or they just need to be proactive about bubblers or something to keep things agitated enough, right? Yeah, I wouldn't do it. But yeah, interesting Is Glidden Point, your most popular spot.

Jackie Stratton:

I think there and pop them were pretty tied.

Jen:

Yeah, because that's got to be a really fun. I mean, obviously, anywhere you're going to do this is going to be fun. But the added element of like doing your bath in a oyster cage and, you know, being able to have oysters if you like such things, I think would be a pretty big draw.

Jackie Stratton:

Yeah, and most of the Monday through Friday, from like 7am to 2 or 3, the farm crew is out there doing stuff which is really fun to watch.

Jackie Stratton:

But outside of that you are, you basically have a sauna at your private oyster farm, and it's a really special opportunity to kind of witness aquaculture through a window while you're like relaxed and sweating. Yeah, and then to eat oysters afterwards is a huge treat. And then at Popham Beach so many pop them for, for those who aren't aware, is a sandy beach, and where I live in Maine is just a rocky coast, and so yesterday I actually spent the entire day at Popham Beach, because that's our closest beach and it's almost two hours away, maybe an hour and a half, so it's a very special place to people, and so the fact that I'm able to have the sauna there and not at the state park, because that would be way too far from the water, the ocean is far too dangerous there. But I'm tucked around at the mouth of the Kennebec River at the other end of the beach, and so it's a safe place. There's a heated building for me and there's bathrooms.

Jen:

Yeah, I hadn't even really thought about that till you brought it up of the whole, like you. I mean, you know these are whatever 60, 90 minute sessions. It's not like you can just like drop off the trailer and be gone all day, Like you need to be pretty actively involved in all of this to keep it going. And yeah, what do you do?

Jen:

OK, everybody's inside now and just I mean yeah, for so many jobs yeah do you wind up staying over, like bringing the pop and finding a place to? Yeah, I was there for whatever.

Jackie Stratton:

Yeah, everywhere I go. At Glendon Point I stay a mile away. I was my friend Kelsey at this woman Helens Place on the Dan with Scott River. In at Popham Beach, I actually get to sleep there at the beach on site. And yeah, in Rockland I stay overnight as well. The other place, craigner in I stay at the inn and they feed me amazing food. So it's really been a way for me. Several years ago, like 10 years ago, I was like, oh, I love Maine, but really what I really I really want in the winter is to be able to travel within Maine and stay at friends' houses and just like have sleepovers. That would make winters great and that's exactly what I'm doing now and so I love that. I've woven travel into it.

Jen:

Yeah, that doesn't sound like it sucks at all. I can see why this would be an interesting part, interesting business to have. So it sounds awesome. So are those? Are those locations all you think going to be back online for this coming season Fall, winter, summer? Yeah, they all.

Jackie Stratton:

they all want me or not me. They want the sauna, right, right.

Jen:

Well, I'm sure a lot of people want the sauna and I saw on your site that I'm sure people ask all the time like, come, bring it to my property, bring it to my event, let me have it at my wedding, like you know. Are you ever going to consider doing anything like that, or are you pretty pretty much like I got? I got a good job going right now with the setup I have and let other people bring? Their mobile sauna to like the pizza party? Yeah, because that's happening.

Jackie Stratton:

There are a couple of businesses in Maine that are doing that now. They'll drop it off and leave, leave it there for a day, three days a week, and I don't think I'm ever going to do that. But I might do a private event, but I'm there taking care of it. One thing that is definitely a factor for me is, well, several things. I don't really trust people. I've seen some strange things that people have done and I don't want things to get damaged.

Jackie Stratton:

Secondly, the stove is like a lot of power for the space and if you're not really skilled with it, you could have like a 250 degrees sauna very, very easily, which would be a horrible experience for people. And so, yeah, I would. I would do like a private event that I am taking care of it, but I think I'd only do it in the summer, because in the winter I really like the flow of things. It's it works, it's what people want, and I personally really like to be on site at the mobile sauna in those locations. And so I've put the work into curating this amazing list of places on the ocean and I want people to come experience it there. No offense to people's like amazing driveways, but a good thing going.

Jen:

Yeah, exactly, exactly. So how long does it take you to get the the you know ones, that the saunas that are in Montville stoked up for the day, versus the mobile sauna? Like, what's the prep time Give some people? I mean, I think you're pretty much end to end, I would imagine working and keeping this thing going. So what type of time commitment is it just to get it up to temperature?

Jackie Stratton:

So, for full disclosure, I'm not taking care of all the saunas at all times. I have a seven staff who are mostly take care of the saunas at my house and that's the total. Maybe like 50 hours a week I have staff for. But it really it depends on the weather, depends on, like, what part of the winter and what our firewood situation is and how much someone's willing to split wood, because the smaller wood you split, the faster it'll heat up. The OG, my oldest sauna, is the fastest to heat up and that can take 45 minutes, like an hour, hour and 15. The new one that I just finished this winter takes more like an hour and a half in the mobile sauna, probably about 45 minutes to an hour and a half, and I am an expert at making fires in all of those places and I will admit that maybe three times a year I forget that someone's coming for a sauna until like 20 to 25 minutes before they're supposed to come and I am able to get it hot enough in that period of time.

Jackie Stratton:

It might be totally terrifying for someone to watch the flames shooting out of the chimney, but I can make that happen and that setup is like the staff who works the day before like leaves all the newspaper and the kindling and the firewood in the sauna.

Jackie Stratton:

So in the morning all you have to do is move the firewood into the firebox and light it. And so it's great to have work that like you're working with the elements and you can predict what the problems are and you can set yourself up for success. So in them I'm typically with the mobile sauna and I do what I call my morning wood, and at night I split a bunch of wood and I split all the kindling I need and I have the newspaper, and so after the last people leave I put everything I need on the top bench and it's 170 degrees in there, so it basically kiln dries everything I need. And so in the morning I'll have to do is get in there and light it, because I do sunrise sonas and sometimes showing up at like 4 430 in the morning. So I want it to be easy and so I like telling that story, because it's like what is your morning wood? What can you do for yourself? That can make your trying times a little bit easier.

Jen:

Yeah, no for sure. That's great. I mean, you've got the sounds like you definitely have the process down, which is, you know, it's like thinking like that, which is why you're such a badass and so successful. I just love it. It's. That's awesome. So did you manage to get out on your big long, did you? Did you go on before you went to Europe? Did you get out on a big long river trip?

Jackie Stratton:

this year I did a seven day canoe trip, yeah nice.

Jen:

How has this talk a little bit about just the whole? Like you made some comments about kind of what it's like to take Something that you're really passionate about and make it into a business. Now it seems like you did this in two different ways. Initially Maybe you were more passionate about the one or the other, but Maybe reflect on what it has felt like Doing your so-called guiding activities, but without the pressure of it being like with people you're entertaining or whatever.

Jackie Stratton:

Yeah, it's a lot less stress. Most most of guiding. Most of the time you spent guiding is in preparation. So say I'm doing a seven day trip, I'm, I might spend like four days Packing, doing all the food prep, and as you do more and more of that you can shrink that time. But I never got to that point and I am a bit of a perfectionist, especially when it comes to food. I'm not a perfectionist in most parts of my life, but providing food for people, I love cooking on fire and so I do a really stellar job with that. And so now that I'm not doing that for a guest, I get to do it for myself and, yes, it's so much less stressful.

Jackie Stratton:

I Think that's that's the most of it and you can do you can do trips that are maybe a little bit more intriguing, like last summer I did a seven or six day white water rafting trip out In Colorado on the Yampa River that I had nothing to do with Preparing for the trip, I just literally showed up and joined friends.

Jackie Stratton:

And then after that I did a ten day trip with my partner on the Green River in Utah, and it's an ecosystem that I've been in before because I used to live out there, but I had never done a river trip, and so I would never, of course, just like take a guided group to Utah and do a trip, and so Instead, if I was still guiding, I would have done that trip with my partner Nate. In the entire time I've been making notes about like things I would want to know for when I was guiding, and that, of course, takes away from the relaxation element of being out there, and so I was able to really just be there and enjoy myself, and so whenever I do a trip now, I'm just it's joy and it's not. It's not something that I'm like cataloging or trying to take the right photos for for social media for when I market the trip the next year, and it's a big relief.

Jen:

So I guess flipping that over Did you is the more you get into make you know, the more that cedar grove is becoming just a big Thing for you. Is it? Is it losing any of its draw? Or are you feeling like there's just so many layers still to uncover and master and experience that you're still getting that kind of excitement out of it? Yeah, I'm still in the. I shouldn't probably. I shouldn't probably ask you a question like oh, do you hate your business yet? Because that was kind of like.

Jackie Stratton:

I think that's a fair question. I don't hate it yet I don't think I will. I just need to keep looking at it from different angles. And like the first year, I was really into While dying my towels, and like I spent hundreds of hours Harvesting, dying things and like that was so exciting to me and I still use those towels. And then, like year two happened, it was like what was I thinking? Like I don't have time to do that, and so each year I'm just going to come up with, like my hair brain hobby, that I've something I've always wanted to do, that I've found a way to like funnel it through the business, and it sucks that I Am more likely to pursue something if it's tied to my business, but like if that's what makes me do the thing that gives me joy, why not try it? And so my friends keep reminding me that I need to figure out how to prevent burnout, and so that's always at the top of my mind. Yeah, I don't know.

Jen:

The wheels are always spinning, though, and there's so much you can do, just like thinking about fire, and it's like Whole self, and you were so good at cooking when on fire, and like I just I don't know.

Jackie Stratton:

I think there's a lot of fun, fun things you could do, even within the structure of what you got going on up there right now, so I'm really inspired by that whole concept of like bringing people together and I think I'm really fed by really I think I'm really fed by relationships with people and connecting people and I don't think I'm going to tire of Always creating new ways to do that, because I think that the practice of sound eyeing and meeting new people in that context Can help a lot of people, and I think it'll take years to like really fully do that in the way that is in my head right now, so I think I will just keep working at it.

Jen:

Well, well, that definitely gets to everything that I want to get to see the grovesanacom anywhere else at scenic grovesana on Instagram. Is that where they can find, if anyone wants to stay on time, that you've an email list that you should definitely get on, because if you want to know, if you want to know, you want the first opportunities on the mobile right. That's where they go first.

Jen:

Yeah, that's that sells out, but I send it there first, right absolutely, and you do all kinds of fun stuff for Mother's Day and you know anyone in your life that would ever want to sound. I'm sure Jackie will have a special time to for you.

Jackie Stratton:

A good gift, to give somebody amazing gift, amazing gift. And remembering now that you asked people about like your favorite gear and stuff and I'm kind of like, well, I do, do you want to? Do you want to?

Jen:

Well, I wasn't going to ask you this because you're a repeater, but if you have some new sauna gear you want to talk about I haven't thought about it and the concepts of sauna. Can you, can you say the question so that I like to understand what your favorite piece of gear is that costs less than $50.

Jackie Stratton:

Oh yeah, see, this is hilarious. It's like something I do naked and yeah, I suppose Do you have nowhere to hold a wallet, so of course it's going to. I mean towels. I really love the towels that I have, so, yeah, where do you source the towels before you die them?

Jen:

or or are you getting new ones now that are already a color that you like, that you are appreciate them from?

Jackie Stratton:

Lithuania actually, and Lithuania has historically been a big producer of flax and linen and has a big textile history. But I guess in the last couple of years most of the linen that they purchase is from out of the country and it's like not financially making sense because of the EU. So that was a huge disappointment. But there in quotations Lithuanian linen towels and linen is great because it dries really quickly. We don't have a dryer here, so I always laugh a little bit because, like, if you know linen, you know that it can get really rough if you don't have a dryer. And so I'm basically giving people like rough, absorbent, authentic linen towels and if they get a tiny bit wet they get soft, but you can use them once and then, like, get back in the sauna and bring the towel in there with you and it'll dry, and then you can come back out and you'll have a warm towel.

Jen:

So I always like towels, towels, for sure. And I actually like a rough towel myself because I just like the extra like abrasion when I'm getting dry. So I'm all for that, like slump off all my aged skin and you know and, and look good while I'm doing that. So it's good, that's a good one. What else did I? Did I miss anything? Anything else you wanted to impart in wisdom? So I think there's two years hence from when we first chatted.

Jackie Stratton:

I don't think so I know you dropped.

Jen:

You dropped a lot of good ones, so I appreciate you. Thank you for making this time and, yeah, I'm super stoked to plan another trip up your way, because it was a lovely, lovely weekend.

Jackie Stratton:

I'd love to have you. Thank you for having me back and thank you for interviewing so many wonderful people. I really love your podcast.

Jen:

If you want to take advantage of one of Cedar Grove Sauna's Summer Tuesdays or want to be among the first to know about where, when Jackie's mobile sauna will be this coming season, you absolutely must sign up for the Cedar Grove sauna email list over at Cedar Grove saunacom. A link for this and all the other cool stuff we touched on today can be found in the show notes for this episode. While you're there, punch that subscribe or follow button and come on over to guides. Gone wild calm to check in on more amazing guests we've talked to since early 2020. Don't get overwhelmed by all the awesomeness. It's easy to search on location activity more to just find the right episodes to fuel your stoke of the week or find the guide you need for that bucket list of venture you're planning for this fall or winter. That's it for now. Thanks again for riding along today. I hope all you've been listening. You've been also getting a little wild.