Sauna - pronounced "Sow" Na

The local Finnish population swear by their sauna's...they take a sauna, like you and I take a bath - but with much more of a spiritual attitude.  Like the American Indian's have their ceremonial sweat lodge, the Fins take their sauna seriously (including either a dip in the frozen lake through a cut hole in the ice or with a roll in the snow).  See Health benefits of a sauna.

From the time we got here, Mark thought he HAD to buy a sauna for me to survive a winter in the north.  Well, we were really not ready to purchase last winter because we couldn't agree on one...do we buy a kit, a ready made sauna, or hire someone to build it for us???  Were do we put it - on the patio or next to the patio?? Since we could not decide, we decided to wait until we've been here a year and then make the decision.  It gave us the time we needed to finish the patio and get used to the farm - and I did survive the winter without one.

We finally decided on a barrel sauna, which holds four people.  They are hand crafted by a local retired building contractor and his wife.  They create 4, 6 and 8 person barrel saunas, some with dressing rooms attached, see them at Keweenaw Saunas. 
Once we saw the quality, we were sold.  We purchased a four person - no dressing room.  The price included delivery and set up - SWEET!!!

 So on Tuesday evening a BIG truck pulled up with our sauna.  They cut the door through our patio wall so that we could put the barrel behind the wall and walk through this door from the patio directly into the sauna.  That means that we have a clear path, right outside our                                                  back door, in cold weather to the sauna.  Mark is going to add trim to the doorway that was cut into the wall.

The sauna stove is a wood stove (typical Finnish design), not electric.  It can be moist or dry - whichever you like. You have a pail of warm water that sits on the stove top.  You ladle the warm water over  the rocks surrounding the stove or yourself as you sit.

I know many people don't like or can't tolerate moist or dry saunas, I've never had issues in the past so I'm looking forward to the physical and spiritual cleansing!