Sauna Sizzles In Snowy Finland
By Cheryl Blackerby
The Palm Beach Daily News (Jan. 18, 2014)
HELSINKI, Finland — We were all naked in the steamy warmth of the sauna. The dimly lit wood building was heated to a sweltering temperature by a wood-burning stove.
A woman dipped water out of a pail and splashed it on hot stones next to the fire in the stove, creating a burst of steam known as a “loyly.” Every loyly is different, each with a spirit of its own, say Finns, and we all watched the vapor as it whirled through the room.
At midday, the winter sun hovered just above the horizon in a golden twilight, lovely and unearthly, making the snowy landscape next to the banks of the Baltic Sea more dream than reality, as surreal as the loyly inside the sauna.
A half-dozen women including a couple of grandmothers and a muscular middle-aged woman and her slender daughter, were seated on wooden slatted benches with nothing on but water-proof shoes. In this setting, our nudity seemed perfectly natural.
A dip in cold, winter water is traditional during a sauna. Photo courtesy of Visit Finland.
No cell phones or conversation interrupted the quiet, only the sizzling wood in the stove. Eyes were softly focused as the women relaxed in the comforting heat and quiet.
One of the older women handed me a wet leafy branch of birch and demonstrated slapping her arms and legs with a branch. She said it helped circulation, and, following her example, I swatted my arms. The branch was, indeed, cooling and invigorating. The fragrance of the birch and the smoky heat, also from birch wood, transported me to the Finnish forest even though we were near downtown Helsinki.
Just when I was relaxing into a sweaty stupor, one of the women stood and motioned for me to follow. I wrapped up in my towel and we walked outside on a path covered with 6 inches of crunchy snow that led to the sea.
On the other side of the harbor, big boxy ferries and cargo ships slowly moved through falling snow to the docks. A small wooden boat was locked down by ice. Puffed-up sparrows perched on the bare twigs of hedges, and seagulls skid-landed on the ice ringing the harbor. The snow-capped gold domes of the Russian Cathedral and the green copper spires of other churches made a fanciful skyline.
At the end of an ice-encrusted pier, she descended a ladder into the water. Pushing aside chunks of ice, she bobbed for about 60 seconds before we walked back to the smoky warmth of the sauna. I didn’t go for a winter dip, rationalizing that this was a feat best left to hearty Finns.
I was shivering by the time we got back to the sauna, but my new friend had a healthy pink glow and a big smile. I smiled, too, when the steamy heat of the fire seeped into my bones.
Saunas were invented by ancient Finns who threw water on hot stones in cave dwellings to intensify the heat of fires. Through the centuries, saunas became a place for healing and de-stressing, as well as a warm refuge in a very cold land.
There’s a particularly cold-hearted Irish curse that says, “May you never be warm again.” I like to think the sauna was the Finns’ answer to that ancient Celtic curse. On the coldest winter day, Finns have always had warmth.
But the sauna is much more than heat on a snowy day. It’s physical, but also meditative and spiritual. Children are taught to behave in a sauna as they do in church. In the old days, women gave birth in the sauna because it was the cleanest room, but also the most sacred.
To find out about saunas, I went to the Finnish Sauna Society, where I found my place in the sauna with the Finnish women. Founded in 1937 to foster the heritage of the “national bath,” the society has around 4,200 members. Thursdays and Mondays are for ladies.
Besides offering 10 traditional saunas for stressed-out members who need warmth and relaxation, the society organizes seminars, supports scientific research and publishes a quarterly magazine, Sauna.
Brushing the arms and legs with fresh birch branches are refreshing in a Finnish sauna. Photo courtesy of Visit Finland.
But the Sauna Society isn’t the only place to experience a sauna. There are public sauna houses and traditional saunas at hotels. Travelers will often see saunas in small buildings next to houses and lakes — the society estimates there are 1.6 million saunas in a country of 5 million people. Recent economic struggles reportedly sent stressed-out Finns to saunas in record numbers.
In the society’s sauna, all of us alternated time in the heat with several treks in the snow — heat and cold, heat and cold. And I can report that none of us appeared to be feeling any stress. The calming effects of my half-day at the sauna actually stayed with me for the rest of my week in Finland.
After the sauna, the women went in two directions — the restaurant for food and drink, and to the masseur.
I went back to town, which offered more down-to-earth sights: teenagers pelting each other with snowballs, green electric trams making tracks in the snow, and women in fur caps selling herring under tents at the market.
Later, the welcome warmth of my hotel room felt great, but it wasn’t nearly the same as that magical heat of the sauna.
Details:
Finnish Sauna Society: The society is open to members, but visitors can call in advance and make reservations.There’s a small fee for a towel and soap. Visit sauna.fi/in-english/