SS E LN lT L a i E ec W ND Sp D A AN INL NA IN F U SA
Scan Magazine | Special Theme | Sauna and Wellness in Finland :
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By the next morning, the boat sauna had escaped to the other side of the lake.
Souls of the sauna Finland, a country of just under five and a half million people, is home to more than two million official saunas – and another estimated million unofficial ones. Finnish sauna is more than an occasional treat or a luxury spa trip; it is a place to relax and reconnect with yourself and loved ones away from the bustle of everyday life, and it has been for millennia. As Scan Magazine discovered at the second World Sauna Forum, an increasingly globalised world brings both challenges and opportunities: how can you bring the benefits of the Finnish sauna to the rest of the world without losing its authenticity? By Louise Older Steffensen | Photos: World Sauna Forum
Finnish iconography abounded before we even set foot in Jyväskylä, the centralFinnish city that hosted the 2018 World Sauna Forum. While the cabin crew was busy handing out delicious bilberry juice, the half-hour flight from Helsinki revealed a respectable number of the country’s famous 1,000 lakes twinkling up at us amidst pine forests, ski lanes and the odd speedway track. In the middle of the Finnish Lakelands, Jyväskylä Airport featured a single baggage carousel overlooked by a massive signed ice hockey jersey. Could things be any more 60 | Issue 119 | December 2018
Finnish? Yes. Yes, they could, as it turned out. The birch trees were beginning to yellow just in time for autumn, and we passed a few more massive, quietly misting lakes for good measure on the drive to Jyvälyskä, the regional capital known for its university, industry and architecture. After receiving our room keys and a set of white towels, bathrobes and slippers, it was politely suggested that we get changed and shower immediately in order to make the most of the pop-up
sauna village that had been set up for the Sauna Forum right by our delightful Hotel Alba – where each suite naturally featured its own sauna too. Clad in swimsuits and fluffy hotel slippers, a few of us foreign visitors shuffled our way through the freezing afternoon darkness past most of the world’s sauna experts over to a mysterious sauna boat on the shore of Lake Jyväsjärvi that we had spotted from our hotel suites. Climbing aboard the wooden vessel, we located a steamy door and hesitantly entered the dark, humid little sauna
Photo: Anu Kuikka.