by Elman, Leslie Gilbert

The Finns did not invent the sauna, but the Finnish Sauna Society is the self-appointed keeper of the sauna flame.

I HAD BEEN IN HELSINKI FOR ALL OF TWO HOURS-long enough to make my way from the airport to my hotel and to deposit my bags inside my room. All I had was an address for the location of my first appointment in Finland. “Vaskiniemi,” it said.

The young woman behind the hotel desk had never heard of the place. The cab driver first in the queue outside was more confident. “We’ll find it,” he promised as he headed over the bridge to the island of Lauttasaari, west of downtown Helsinki. A few rights and lefts led us to a residential neighborhood that bordered the sea. At the end of a narrow, downward-sloping drive he stopped in front of a nondescript, low building. The sign on the front wall said “Sauna-Seura.”

The cab driver turned to me. “You’re going to the sauna?” “Yes,” I told him.

He positively beamed at me, as if delighted to learn he had underestimated me all along. I was no mere tourist or business traveler. I was more like a pilgrim who had come to seek enlightenment.

The Sauna Source

Suomen Sauna-Seura, the Finnish Sauna Society, has been the world’s clearinghouse for sauna information since 1937. This year it celebrates its 75th anniversary as an organization and its SOth year at the site on Lauttasaari. The present building was constructed in 1952, shortly before Helsinki hosted that year’s Summer

In her scholarly paper, Sauna as Symbol, L.M. Edelsward writes that back in 1937 a Finn named HJ. Viherjuuri organized a group of Finnish journalists, doctors and architects to “take up the cause of modernizing and protecting the sauna.” This group eventually became known as the Finnish Sauna Society.

It seems that even 75 years ago the idea of the sauna, as Finns conceive it, was in danger of being diluted and corrupted as it spread to other lands and cultures. “Sauna” might be the most universally recognized word in the Finnish language, yet its definition varies significantly from place to place.

A Finnish woman I spoke with recently recalled a visit to a sauna in Germany, where she was chastised for entering the sauna carrying a dampened towel. She could only imagine the furor that would have resulted if she had doused the sauna stones with water to produce Ily, the therapeutic steam that is the essence of the Finnish sauna.

Even more distressing to Finns is the use of the word “sauna” as a euphemism for a place where sexual assignations occur-much like a “massage parlor” in the United States. Rectifying such misconceptions and misrepresentations drive the Finnish Sauna Society in its mission to educate the world about saunas.

To address sauna-related health and medical issues the Finnish Sauna Society administers the Finnish Sauna Research Foundation. Founded in 1984, the Research Foundation promotes, administers and funds scientific and medical research projects that tout the benefits of the sauna and seek to refute claims that bathing in the sauna can pose a health risk.

The society’s quarterly Finnish-language magazine, Sauna, covers all aspects of sauna culture from practical articles on sauna construction to features about personalities, such as Helsinki’s Hoyry Sauna Club, the colorful sauna “ambassadors” who built a makeshift sauna on the roof of New York’s Gershwin Hotel in 2001.

The Social Sauna

Naturally, the Finnish Sauna Society has a social component as well. Its 3,000 members, ranging in age from near 30 to over 90, are united by their devotion to traditional saunas. Almost all are Finns. Sixty-three percent are men. Most visit the saunas once a week, but many of the men come once a day (except on the days reserved for women).

Members may be business leaders, politicians, ordinary working people or retirees, yet everyone is equal in the sauna. (Truly, it’s hard to act superior when you’re naked and sweating.) As Finland’s longtime president Urho Kekkonen once explained, the sauna is “a great leveler: there are no ministers, VIPs, laborers or lumberjacks on the sauna platform, only sauna mates.” Business discussions are generally frowned upon at the Sauna Society. Members go there to enjoy their privacy and to escape from their everyday concerns. Indeed, says the society’s executive secretary Sinikka Korvo, most members are strictly on a first-name basis and rarely meet outside the confines of the society.

The greatest benefits for members of the Finnish Sauna Society are its savusaunas, or smoke saunas. The most traditional of all Finnish saunas, the smoke sauna is a rare treat for sauna devotees. Few still exist in Finland. The Finnish Sauna Society maintains three of them.

Unlike traditional wood-fired saunas, smoke saunas do not have chimneys that allow smoke to escape from the sauna chamber. Instead the smoke sauna’s birchwood fire is allowed to smolder for five or six hours as smoke collects in the sauna chamber. Just before the sauna is to be used, the smoke is released through the sauna door or a small vent. (This process poses a severe risk of fire, which is one reason savusaunas are uncommon in modernday Finland.)

The smoke sauna’s smell is unmistakable-heady, warm and mysterious. Its walls are blackened by the concentration of smoke. Its heat is said to be more gentle and even than that of traditional wood-fired or electric saunas. Certainly the smoke saunas at the Finnish Sauna Society create a soothing, contemplative atmosphere as one soaks in the heat while gazing out the tiny windows at the gray Baltic.

The Finnish Sauna Society also houses two wood-fired saunas, with chimneys to vent their smoke to the outdoors, and one electric “city sauna” available for those who care to use it. Some do, but not nearly as many as those who take advantage of the smoke saunas.

“I have a sauna at home in my housing block. It’s in the cellar. There are no windows,” says Sinikka Korvo. “Here it is so different. From the hot room you come out into the fresh air, see the trees, the water, nature. That’s important to the Finnish people.”

It is also why Lauttasaari was ultimately chosen as the home of the Finnish Sauna Society. Although it is within the Helsinki city limits and just five kilometers from the city center the location at the tip of a narrow peninsula is quiet and naturally beautiful.

After sitting in the sauna, one walks outdoors to the dock and into the chilly salt water. There’s a pleasant patio next to the building and chairs are scattered about the lawn for relaxing. Indoors is a lounge, with a roaring fire, where beer, soft drinks and snacks are served.

“We hope the people who join us want to keep the traditions of the sauna and behave as we do here,” says Korvo. She jokes that one should sit in the sauna the way one sits in church-in quiet contemplation and without falling asleep.

Among the dignitaries who have visited the Finnish Sauna Society are England’s Prince Phillip and then-U.S. Vice President George Bush. Their framed letters of thanks hang in the lounge beside the fireplace.

To join the Finnish Sauna Society one must be proposed by two individuals who have been members in good standing for at least five years. However, foreign visitors may use the Finnish Sauna Society facilities for a small fee if they telephone in advance to request permission.

Taking Sauna International

Also celebrating an anniversary this year is the International Sauna Society (ISS), the inevitable offshoot of the Finnish Sauna Society. The ISS, based in Finland, was created 25 years ago. It exists as an umbrella organization for sauna societies in Austria, Germany, Japan, The Netherlands, Slovakia, Sweden and Switzerland.

About every four years, the ISS hosts an International Sauna Congress that addresses a wide variety of sauna issues, from health and medicine to sauna construction and maintenance. The 13th International Sauna Congress was held in Zurich in August 2002. Among the seminar presenters were Minna Hannuksela, M.D., from the University of Oulu in Finland,

and Samer Ellahham, M.D., from the Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C., who spoke about the health benefits and risks of sauna bathing. Beatriz Kuzara, founder of the Boise, Idaho-based sauna manufacturer Scandia Health Systems, was among the delegates attending the Congress. “I go hoping to gather data, especially on health subjects,” says Kuzara. “Very few health studies [about saunas] are done in the U.S.” Kuzara is also hoping to raise the profile of the American Sauna Association, which she and Finnish-born professor Mika Roinila founded in 2002.

“We hope the people who join us want to keep the traditions of the sauna and behave as we do here,” says Korvo. She jokes that one should sit in the sauna the way one sits in church-in quiet contemplation and without falling asleep.

Among the dignitaries who have visited the Finnish Sauna Society are England’s Prince Phillip and then-U.S. Vice President George Bush. Their framed letters of thanks hang in the lounge beside the fireplace.

To join the Finnish Sauna Society one must be proposed by two individuals who have been members in good standing for at least five years. However, foreign visitors may use the Finnish Sauna Society facilities for a small fee if they telephone in advance to request permission.

Taking Sauna International

Also celebrating an anniversary this year is the International Sauna Society (ISS), the inevitable offshoot of the Finnish Sauna Society. The ISS, based in Finland, was created 25 years ago. It exists as an umbrella organization for sauna societies in Austria, Germany, Japan, The Netherlands, Slovakia, Sweden and Switzerland.

About every four years, the ISS hosts an International Sauna Congress that addresses a wide variety of sauna issues, from health and medicine to sauna construction and maintenance. The 13th International Sauna Congress was held in Zurich in August 2002. Among the seminar presenters were Minna Hannuksela, M.D., from the University of Oulu in Finland,

and Samer Ellahham, M.D., from the Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C., who spoke about the health benefits and risks of sauna bathing. Beatriz Kuzara, founder of the Boise, Idaho-based sauna manufacturer Scandia Health Systems, was among the delegates attending the Congress. “I go hoping to gather data, especially on health subjects,” says Kuzara. “Very few health studies [about saunas] are done in the U.S.” Kuzara is also hoping to raise the profile of the American Sauna Association, which she and Finnish-born professor Mika Roinila founded in 2002.

There does not seem to be a definitive reason why the Finns have taken up the cause of promoting sauna to the world. Certainly saunas by other names-the Native American sweat lodge, the Roman and Turkish baths and the Mexican temascal, among others-have existed for centuries.

It is clear, however, that the sauna is more an integral part of daily life in Finland than it is in other parts of the world. The sauna in Finland knows no economic boundaries. Indeed, saunas exist in most Finnish housing projects and even in some prisons. Saunas are used equally by men and women, in the city and in the country, for stress relief and for socializing. For many Finns, the sauna is perhaps the ultimate representation of what it means to be from Finland. Perhaps that’s reason enough to want to share it with the world.

For more information about the Finnish Sauna Society visit www.sauna.fi. To arrange a visit to the Finnish Sauna Society, call +358 (0) 9 6860 560. For information about the American Sauna Association visit www.americansaunaassociation.org or contact Beatriz Kuzara at bkuzara@americansaunaassociation.org

Freelance journalist Leslie Gilbert Elman has written about Roskilde Cathedral, Arne Jacobsen and Keiko the orca for Scandinavian Review.

Copyright American Scandinavian Foundation Autumn 2002
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved

About the Author: Elman, Leslie Gilbert “Celebrating the sauna“. Scandinavian Review. Autumn 2002. FindArticles.com. 07 Oct. 2007. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3760/is_200210/ai_n9130199

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