In Finland, the Christmas sauna has been a tradition for longer than Christianity has existed. Today, millions of saunas are heated throughout the land on Christmas Eve for the population to enjoy. In the book Christmas in Finland, the authors estimate that 70% of the population of Finland will enjoy a joulusauna on Christmas Eve. Many of Finland’s public saunas even have special Christmas Eve and Christmas Day hours for their patrons who don’t have their own sauna.
The sauna in Finland is not just a place of refuge and relaxation. It is a bath. So the Christmas sauna has a practical purpose. With Christmas celebrated at the winter solstice, close to the new year and symbolized with the birth of Christ, it is the perfect time to cleanse your body to symbolize that rebirth. In Finland, the sauna is the preferred place to bathe yourself. The temperature in Helsinki rarely gets above freezing this time of year, so having a nice hot place to bathe can help get the chill from your bones.
While the sauna is heating, many capture those kilowatts by cooking in it. Two Finnish-Canadian women published The Sauna Cookbook a few years ago with recipes for both enjoying while you sauna and cooking in the sauna. Another Finnish-Canadian, Sauna Pekka reminisces about a Christmas dinner of his youth:
At Christmas time in Finland we bake a 12 kg (26 lb) ham “kinkku” in the equivalent of 100°C (212°F) sauna heat for eight hours. For the ham we do not pour löyly, as it cooks better without it. When I sit in North American dry heat saunas, the poor ham comes always in my mind.
Christmas is a more recent invention than the sauna. Christmas came to Finland about 700 years ago. When Christmas arrived, it took on some of the existing midwinter celebrations that had existed for thousands of years before. Throughout much of Scandinavia, the old beliefs held that on the night of midwinter, the dead returned to walk the earth. Many still keep the sauna warm and throw another ladle of water on the rocks to make it comfortable for when your ancestors, elves and gnomes visit.
Modern health practitioners caution that you should not take a sauna too close to a large feast like that eaten on Christmas eve. They caution that you should use the sauna in the afternoon. However, people who know Finnish folklore understand that after dark, the sauna is reserved for the dead. Some say the devil himself walks the earth to find a sauna to bathe in at midnight on the winter solstice.
Other old beliefs say that the midwinter celebration is a time to thank the gods for the past season’s bountiful harvest and ask them for a fertile growing season in the spring. Some believe that throwing beer on the sauna stove helped appease these gods.
If you can, heat up your sauna this Christmas (or whichever winter holiday you celebrate). May it bring you peace, luck and a good harvest in the new year.
Steam of Life, the award-winning Finnish documentary of men in the sauna is set to air in the USA next week on the PBS show POV. The film, called Miesten vuoroin Finnish, is a series of beautifully shot interviews with Finnish men who bare themselves and their souls to the camera. It has won several awards for its beautiful cinematography and heartfelt storytelling.
The film is scheduled to air at 10pm on Tuesday August 2, but you should check your local listings. If your local PBS channel chooses not to show it, or you aren’t in an area where you can get PBS, the film will be available to watch on the POV website from August 3 through November 1, 2011.
Apress release on the POV website describes the film:
Among the interesting things we learn from Steam of Life is that portable saunas can appear anywhere in Finland — in trailers, tepees, cars, even phone booths — at a moment’s notice. We also learn that Finnish men of all shapes, sizes and ages are not the least bit self-conscious about being nude, either in front of each other or in front of the filmmakers’ cameras (or behind the cameras — the crew was naked, too). We also learn that Finnish men, despite their reputation for not being communicative, are almost unstoppable once they get talking in their quiet way about their lives. They speak from a deep emotional need to share their experiences, and from a special place, the sauna, where they shed social inhibitions and distinctions along with their clothes.
To film the scenes in the sauna, the crew used 16mm film cameras. They had to slowly acclimate the cameras to the sauna temperatures of up to 200F (93C) to ensure they worked properly.
POV has posted a trailer on YouTube (embedded above) where some of the nudity has been blurred out. As a longtime fan of POV, my guess is they will offer two versions of the film to the individual PBS stations: A censored one and an uncensored one. They will choose which version to air. The film’s runtime has also been cut from 86 to 60 minutes to fit into the hour-long TV slots in the USA.
POV, now in its 24th season on PBS, features the works of today’s best independent documentary filmmakers.
Sauna from Finland, a Finnish trade association that promotes the use of Finnish saunas is running a survey and contest. One lucky winner will get an all-expense paid trip to Finland to enjoy a sauna for themselves.
The survey is to gauge foreigners’ opinions of the Finnish sauna. I took it, and it takes about 5 minutes to complete.
According to the official contest rules, the contest is open until August 5, 2011 and the drawing will take place sometime in August. We’ve got our entry submitted!
Reijo Juopperi (left.), Markku Mustonen, Eero Kirves, Antti Rapanen and Gennadi Orehin sitting on the bench at the start of the finals of one of the heats of the sauna competition. Juha Turkia added water to the stones of the traditional smoke sauna. Photo: JUHA METSO
After last year’s tragedy at the Sauna world Championships that left one competitor dead and another seriously injured, the City of Heinola Finland announced they would no longer hold their competition. Others, however have stepped in to keep sauna endurance championships active.
This past Friday a group of 16 men competed in the Saimaa Löylycup in Rautjärvi.
This event has kept some of the same concepts that were in place at the Sauna World Championships: The competitors sat in a sauna at 212°F (100°C) and 2 cups (1/2 liter) of water was poured on the rocks twice a minute to intensify the heat. The last one to leave the sauna under their own power was declared the winner. The organizers were quick to point out that participants who did not feel well should leave immediately.
Unlike the Heinola competition that used an electric-heated sauna, this competition was held in a smoke sauna — all of the heat for the sauna sessions is added to the rocks by a fire that must be completely extinguished before any bathers can enter the sauna.
There are four saunas being built for this festival:
The Hot Cube is a minimalistic sauna in a cube shape that sits over a river. Sauna bathers can look through the open floor to watch the river flowing below.
The Solaris-sauna is a transparent sauna that has been installed in the town square.
Sauna Obscura allows you to sauna inside of a camera. Special optics on this floating sauna project the surroundings onto the walls and bathers in the sauna.
The Sounding Dome Sauna is shaped like a garlic bulb and has its own sound scape that changes with the temperature and humidity inside of the sauna.
The saunas will be open to the public from June 1 through August 21 of this year. All of the saunas except the Hot Cube can be used individually for about €10 per person. Groups can reserve a sauna for 50 minutes for € 60 €100. Advance tickets may be purchased via the Sauna Lab website.
If you plan to use one of the saunas, the organizers are requesting you wear a swimsuit. You need to provide your own swimsuit and towel.
Additional sauna related art works are on display throughout the year, including several photo exhibitions. The full list of what is happening and when is available on the city’s website.
If you are planning to go, Turku is about two hours drive from Helsinki. You can book a hotel with a sauna for your stay on our website.
In a statement issued today, they confirm what has been suspected since the tragedy last August that resulted in the death of one finalist and the continued hospitalization of another.
The city has received plenty of feedback claiming that organizing the competition should not be stopped. If the city was to organize the World Sauna Championships in the future, the original playful and joyous characteristics of the event should be reintroduced. No ways to achieve this have been found.
There are several high quality events in Heinola also this summer, even if the World Sauna Championships were not to be organized. Thousands of saunas will be heated in Heinola next summer, with steams that are healthy, safe and relaxing.
The prosecutors announced their decision this morning on Finnish Television station YLE after a thorough investigation of the incident. They found that the organizers had appropriate medical staff on hand, and the sauna temperature was cooler than it had been in years past. They also presented evidence that the Russian man who died shortly after the event may have used painkillers and ointments that were forbidden by the organizers.
The organizers may still face civil actions from the deceased man’s family.
It may feel like spring in the mid-Atlantic USA where we write from, but for much of the frozen north, winter events are just getting started. What better way to warm up at one of these events than to enjoy a sauna, made from ice.
A quirk of physics is that ice works as an excellent insulator: A sauna can be built of ice blocks that has an interior temperature of nearly 100°C / 212°F, yet the ice will not immediately melt. See this video for more information.
The BP World Ice Art Championships, presented by Ice Alaska, are taking place this month in Fairbanks Alaska. More than 70 teams of ice carvers are producing works of art from blocks of ice harvested from a nearby lake. As part of the festivities, a team from Finland has carved a working sauna from ice. Our emails to the organizers for more information on the sauna have gone unanswered to date. We hope to get some more information for you about the sauna.
The Ice Alaska festival remains open until March 27, 2011. Admission is $10 for the day, $25 for a season pass.
In Sinettä, Finland, the Snow Hotel offers its guests the opportunity to enjoy their Snow Sauna carved from ice and snow. Rooms at the hotel are € 120 per night, based on double occupancy.
Update: Just for you Glenn, here is a video of a Finnish Ice sauna in action. Enjoy.
Sauna Yoga - Photo by Hanne Manelius, Copyright Sauna from Finland association
There have been several varieties of hot yoga practiced for years, but the association Sauna From Finland is taking it to a new level with their Sauna Yoga program. Unlike the popular Bikram Yoga that is practiced at 105°F (41°C), the Sauna Yoga program is practiced at a blistering 122°F (50°C) in a real Finnish Sauna.
According to Sauna From Finland:
The Sauna Yoga method combines different yoga styles in a half an hour leisured exercise. The poses are done carefully in tune with one’s body and kept on for long periods, making it comparable to slow gymnastics. The session starts with a meditative breathing exercise, followed by muscle strengthening exercises in a standing position and floor-based poses sitting up. The session ends with a whole body relaxation on the warm yoga mat. The technique helps the body gain strength and aids metabolism.
The recently launched first series of Sauna Yoga method have a strong emphasis on muscles groups in the upper and lower back. Further series are being developed with the intention of launching them in a seasonal cycle.
The program is one of many that are being developed by the Sauna From Finland society to help operators of Finland’s saunas find new ways to engage this sauna-crazy public. Who knows, maybe even Nokia’s Stephen Elop will finally embrace the sauna rather than fight it.
If you want more information about Sauna Yoga or the other services that Sauna From Finland offers, contact them via their website.
The city government of 
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