I have enjoyed being a part of the growing interest in sauna here in the US, in particular Minnesota since returning from studying at the University of Tampere in January 2012. I somehow took it on as my personal mission to operate as a volunteer Ambassador of Finnish culture and that includes sauna, of course. My first sauna experience was in a community sauna at Salolampi Finnish Language Village in Bemidji, MN. To say that that experience was transformative is lacking the true intensity of the life-altering moment I first experienced löyly (that is steam produced in the sauna - and only the sauna - otherwise it is höyry for the non-sauna steam that gets produced in other contexts like cooking or powering of old-timey trains).
