Despite below-freezing temperatures and sunset as early as 3 pm, the Finns are embracing midwinter by hanging out in the sauna: a millennia-old tradition that began when the first settlers dug holes in the ground and filled them with hot stones.
Inside the sauna, it’s a toasty 80°C and silent but for the crackle of burning wood and the hiss of water being ladled on stones. Sweat-drenched and naked, the sauna-goers step outside and plunge joyously into a hole in the ice.
The water so mind-numbingly cold it stings the skin and jump-starts the nervous system. After a beer and a vigorous whipping with a bundle of birch branches
(to improve circulation and relax and detoxify the body), it’s time to do the whole ritual again.
Fondly dubbed the ‘poor man’s pharmacy’, the sauna is at the very heart of Finnish culture. Finns go to the sauna to cleanse mind and body, to socialize,
and do business name any important life event and you can bet your bottom dollar a sauna will be involved.
In the course of centuries, many nations have practiced sweat bathing. In some places the practice died out, elsewhere it disappeared for a long time and was later picked up again. The Finnish sauna is also a sweat bath but of a distinctive kind. It has been influenced by both the Eastern and Western bath cultures but has also developed some genuinely national features.
The tradition of the sauna, carried on unbroken for about two thousand years, is deeply rooted in the nation’s way of life. Sauna bathing is part of the Finnish identity just as essential as rye bread is part of the customary diet. At its most primitive, the sauna was probably
a pit dug into a slope, with a heap of heated stones in one corner.
The dugout developed into a four-cornered log hut with an earth floor and a chimneyless stove; this served as both a primitive dwelling and a bath.
There was smoke in the room when the stove was being heated, but afterward, it vanished, leaving behind a smoky smell. The smoke
sauna, with some modern adaptations, is nowadays becoming quite popular again.
The next step in the story of the sauna was the addition of a chimney to the stove, which was then heated just once each time; still later came a newer type of stove which could be kept hot by continuous heating.
