View from sauna on Lake Saimaa, Finland during visit in 2019
Entering the Finnish-American community in Minnesota as an outsider can be pretty intimidating. Just ask my fiance (an Oklahoman) who first pronounced sauna like the Finnish word for ‘word,’ sana. From people using their ‘percentage’ of Finnishness as a marker to keep them above the crowd to those who perceive any non-Finns’ interpretation of sauna as merely an appeal to trend, it becomes tiring to feel the need to prove oneself in the otherwise healthful and calming setting of a backyard sauna. I am guilty of this too at times, and take responsibility for feeling as though Finns somehow own sauna in all its iterations. This is simply not true, sauna grows and changes as it becomes further understood in new ways both inside and outside of Finland. In acknowledging this elitist perspective, some of us need to confront our own identity as Finnish-American and let it inform how we share sauna, but also how we preserve sauna.
Sauna is a Finnish word, arguably the most well known part of a unique and beautiful, albeit difficult language to learn. In the sauna manufacturing world, I applaud a search for connection and understanding between for-profit motives and a culturally Finnish anchor in a sea of American-ness. A friend told me about a Finns-only sauna from their youth, a concept which feels very fierce in its conservation of culture, like a mother’s protective love for her children. But, it feels also like a deep symbol, one that can be interpreted through the lens of fear, fear for the loss of one's culture, so much so that it becomes exclusionary. I still don’t know what this means exactly, for it probably means many things. To me this deep meaning lies somewhere between a positive force of identity and togetherness and some less easy pieces that hinge around barring certain people from entering, based upon bloodline.
In the process of digesting my own conceptual understanding and love of sauna there is so much space for sharing. This sharing can be lovely but it can also be hard, as I find myself frustrated by the American aversion to completely respectful nudity in sauna. I have felt connected to people in sauna in very deep ways, people whom sauna was new for. But as sauna grows and changes, we cannot forget how much it means to Finns and those of Finnish descent in America; how it is a symbol of culture not lost, of what assimilation was not able to take away. As sauna becomes more known to the world, its health benefits and positive social environment can be enjoyed by all. So let us teach and learn alike, bridging this cultural gap between modern trend and the hard fought conservation of a Finnish-American culture and identity.
-Meade Redwine
meade.redwine@gmail.com
@meade_lumi
Sauna surroundings from my trip to Saimaa in Finland, 2019
