Saunas, Reindeer and the Midnight Sun: Finland, A Well-Kept Secret!

This past summer I was lucky enough to be able to spend a month in Finland. I went with my housemate who was born in Finland and spent part of her childhood there, so I had a wonderful tour guide and a vacation of a lifetime.

Finland is one of the most beautiful and peaceful places I've even seem. The country is pristine and natural and the people are respectful and quiet. There was so much beauty and places of interest I hardly know where to start, so I've decided to narrow my wonderful experience to Saunas, reindeer and the midnight sun.

We flew into Helsinki, Finland's capitol and largest city, where we stayed for a few days. We then rented a car and headed North through the 'Lakeland' area and up into Finnish Lapland. The lake country was beautiful with over 200,000 lakes and endless stretches of crystal clear water surrounded by miles of birch and pine forests. It is said that this area is the cleanest and safest environment in the world.

Thousand of small cottages (over 500,000) dot the banks of the lakes, and the Finns love to spend the summer months at their cottages where mother nature is in her summer glory. This is where I encountered my first real Finnish sauna. (In Finland, it is pronounced 'Sow-nah', not 'saw-na' as the American's say). I wasn't really a stranger to the sauna as we have a modern Finnish sauna at home in Oregon, but ours is the modern kind with an electric heater and when we finish our sauna, we jump into the swimming pool, not a lake or ocean! Most of the saunas beside lake cottages are original, wood-burning ones, and everyone has a sauna!

I don't know if I could ever do justice in describing the feeling of taking a true Finnish sauna, but I'll try. We visited my friend's elderly aunt at her cottage on the Baltic Sea. It was a gorgeous setting amid birch tree forests, wild grasses and wildflowers, and it just happened to be one of the favorite Finnish summer holiday weekends--Juhannus--which is the same as our summer solstice (the longest day of the year). The celebration begins on Friday night and lasts through Sunday night with special foods,raising the of the Finnish flag (this is a time when it is allowed to fly the flag day and night throughout the Juhannus weekend) and a traditional sauna with the tied branches of birch leaves called 'vihat' used to slap against the body while taking a sauna.

The sauna was in a separate small building next to the cabin, facing the woods and sea. Early in the morning, the old auntie (she was 89 and spry and sharp as could be!) began gathering birch logs to heat the huge water boiler and the sauna. She also collected the birch branches to make the vihat. The fire must be roaring under both the boiler and sauna for at least 5 hours before the sauna and water are hot enough and ready for bathing.
The gathering of wood and stoking the fires were an all-day chore.

The sauna was small, only about 8'x 8', all wood, with two traditional benches, one high, one low. Outside on the porch was a collection of buckets, soaps, covered containers of cold water, luftas, brushes, rough sauna clothes, shampoo and towels. By early evening, the sauna was ready and the auntie called us to come and take our sauna. This is where the marvelous experience begins...

We undressed on the porch. The women usually go in together first, and then the men take over when the women are finished. No one is modest or shy as all Finns have been taking saunas since childhood. We striped quickly on the porch, and hung our clothing and towels on the wooden pegs provided along the walls. Buckets of boiling water were dipped from the huge boiler and we mixed it with the cold water in the buckets until it was the right temperature to pour over ourselves. We wet our hair and entire bodies out on the porch, then took in our buckets and stepped into the sauna room. We each had a vihat (the tied birch leaves) which we dipped in our water buckets, then sat on the benches and slapped the birch leaves against our bodies, helping each other reach our backs. Hot water from the boiler pot was continuously poured over the hot rocks of the sauna to make the room stay steamy and hot.

In our sauna at home, I can only stay in a few minutes before running out to breathe the fresh air. In the Finnish sauna, I didn't want to leave at all. The air was moist and warm and sweet-smelling and it was very comfortable just to sit and relax. We stayed in for perhaps 30 minutes, then went outside. At this point, it is traditional to run through the woods and into the sea for a nice, brisk swim. After the swim, we went back in the sauna for another 30 minutes or so. I was totally and marvelously relaxed. When we were finished with our sauna, we again stepped out on the porch, but this time we used the soap and water, sponges and luftas to bathe and wash our hair, again helping scrub each other's backs. We toweled off and put on our warm sweat suits and went into the cabin to visit and relax. A typical Finnish sauna takes at least two hours from start to finish.

Soon we were called to the table to a Juhannus feast with all the traditional Juhannus foods and drink. The entire sauna experience was one of the best and most enjoyable experiences I have ever had.

After staying at the cabin for almost a week, we left and continued North to Finnish Lapland which is at the arctic circle in the Wild North of Finland. Lapland is the last refuge of the aboriginal Sámi people, who subsist on reindeer herding and selling souvenirs to visitors. From the very moment we crossed the Arctic Circle, we began seeing herds of reindeer roaming along the sides of the road. Reindeer were everywhere and care must be taken to not hit one. Killing a reindeer is a crime with very large fines. There are about 200,000 reindeer in Finland.

Lapland is largely flat and treeless in places and vast forests in others. Located exactly on the Arctic Circle in Finnish Lapland, the town of Rovaniemi is the legendary home country of Santa Claus, and a very large Santa Claus Village. Santa and his reindeer and elves are there year around and In December Santa receives 32,000 letters a day from 200 countries around the world .

Since we were visiting in the summer, it was the time of the midnight sun. The entire month we were in Finland, it never got dark and was sunny and bright 24 hours a day. Many nights I would be awakened by the sun coming in the window and I would have to put a pillow over my eyes to go back to sleep again.

Finland is one of the world's best kept secrets. It is truly a beautiful place with very proud people who have a great love for their country, nature and the environment.

For some additional history on the Finnish Sauna, please see the AC article
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/49618/saunas_history_application.html