West of Mpls MN about 50 miles on Hwy 12 | Yes I am, 99.8%. It is still "fun" to introduce first time sauna users to the experience of blowing on their arm when a person really gets the sauna cooking.
Sauna can be almost a spiritual experience. I enjoy about 130*F-135*F, and a nice all encompassing envelope of löyly (steam/heat) which in the Finnish language means “Spirit of Life”.
A little history from wikipedia about the oldest surviving sauna in North America which was originally located about a mile from where we live.
https://www.mnopedia.org/structure/barberg-selv-l-salmonson-sauna-co...
Non-Finns in Cokato and elsewhere were unfamiliar with sauna. They did not know what their Finnish neighbors were doing in sauna buildings, which looked to them like strange little huts, and there was great speculation. Adding to the controversy was the standard practice of taking sauna and cooling off naked, often outside in the air if the sauna did not have a separate dressing room, which many early Minnesota savusaunas did not. The Barberg-Selvälä-Salmonson sauna was one of these, so the families cooled themselves in the fresh air, naked. This was fine when their property was remote, but it caused quite a stir as Cokato grew and one of the major town roads was laid out along the Barberg-Selvala property line, right next to the sauna.
In 1885, the controversy over the Barberg-Selvälä-Salmonson sauna went to court. Members of the community accused the Selvälä family, who had bought the Barberg and Salmonson families out of their shares of the sauna by then, of strange religious or other practices related to their sauna use. The Selvalas proved to the court that they were upstanding citizens and good Lutherans, and that they were just using the sauna to get clean; they won thirty dollars in damages for the accusations made against them. However, the Selvalas were ordered by the court to move their sauna to a more private location on their property, away from the road. They were given an additional forty dollars to do so. Nils Selvala moved the sauna, but used it from then on as a shed, taking the money his family had won in court to build a bigger, nicer sauna elsewhere on their property.
Barbergs are still our neighbors, and we have rented their farm from them since the late 60's. I sure am glad my sauna is far enough off of the same road, and my neighbors fought for, won, and retained theirs and my freedom/right to cool off naked in our backyards. ;-)
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Mashed carrots and rice for curing Covid
