Every Day Counts! So I took advantage of a 4-day weekend in Helsinki. I was joined by Cris, who was there for a conference, but FIRST, a Smoke Sauna Tour. You know that every Finn has a private sauna, plus they all go jump into holes in the ice at public saunas during the winter, right? I signed us up for a great tour up north at Sipoonkorpi National Park.
Priscilla drove our van, and supplied us with loaner backpacks with berry juice in a thermos. She led us on a 3 km hike through the forest, stopping to show us the plant life and explain the philosophy of the Finns.
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| Where are we, Priscilla? |
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| During Covid, people used outdoor offices, with slots for phones, bottles, and laptops. We are standing behind the sauna buildings here |
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| Lily-of-the Valley (Kielo in Finnish) is the National Flower |
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| Raining, of course, on a beautiful water lilly lake |
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| I had my rain jacket and my hat, so no problem! |
After walking about 3 km, we stopped at the firewood supply shed and sawed and chopped our wood to use to cook lunch. Priscilla showed us how. I did a great job, if I do say so myself, of sawing and chopping! (But I wanted to brag about how big my log was, so didn't allow an evidential picture.)
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| Saws and axes are used by all, the wood is supplied from outside the park |
We joined a crowd at the cooking shelter. Priscilla packed in a multicourse meal, with sausages, pie things with rice pudding inside, rolls that were crunchy on the outside, and for dessert, squeaky cheese with cloudberry jam. All heated over our burning woodl Like a more civilized Girl Scout trip.
Now comes the dreaded sauna experience. We trooped back to the van and switched to our swimsuit supplies from our backpacks. Left the cameras, but brought water bottles, flip flops and towels. First panic for me: my swim suit bottoms had been left in the hotel! I wore my underpants, and the top of the suit half-covered my butt, so I never got a second look. I saw one woman wearing black underwear, so yeah, it was okay.
We used 3 or 4 buildings with no electricity, just manual heating by pouring ladles of water over wood-heated stones. People kept coming in and cooling the air near the door, while they added the steam. I, seriously, stayed near the doors because I couldn't breathe up top. The Finns believe in HOT saunas.
Next step, after you are hot, the dreaded leap into the lake. It took one try of creeping down the ladder to discover that holding your nose and taking a leap was a better approach! Hang out until your body acclimatizes to the cold, then repeat. Cris and I used 3 of the saunas, while our other tourmate and the two guides went for 4.
What a fun, educational, beautiful day! Who else has discovered saunas? Bonded with the outdoors?
Part 2 (kaksi in Finnish) in the next post
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