The Opposite of Cold: The Northwoods Finnish Sauna Tradition

The Opposite of Cold: The Northwoods Finnish Tradition By Michael Nordskog Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010. ix + 187 pp. Acknowledgements, notes, and index. $34.95, ISBN 0816656827.Reviewed by David J. Puglia, dpuglia@psu.edu, American Studies Program, Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg, Middletown, PA 17057No matter where Finns go, they bring their tradition with them. Indeed, Arnold R. Alanen refers to in his introduction as the sign of (p. xi). Finns and their tradition had been present in eastern colonies since early seventeenth century, but their wood saunas have unfortunately been erased from landscape by unforgiving climate. Between 1864 and 1914, an additional 300,000 Finns immigrated to Upper Midwest. They made their homes - and their saunas - in Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Ontario, an area similar to their native climate and now known as sauna belt. Some of these original saunas survive to this day, and as tradition lives, new saunas continue to be built by subsequent generations. Up to 1960s, ninety percent of Finnish families owned a sauna. Those who didn't found their way to public saunas for ten to twenty cents a steam.This beautifully photographed book promises to be a fitting tribute to great tradition of Northern Minnesota. For non-Upper Midwesterners unfamiliar with traditional Finnish sauna, this is distinctly different from funky room next to hotel pool (p. 1). Pronounced like Carl Sauer - does not rhyme with fauna. The typical is 20 by 10 feet, single entry, two rooms, with a chimney, and often near a body of water. From arrival of Finn in nineteenth century, tradition has endured. The premise of book is that saunas are first building built by Finns in a new land, remain central to Finnish-American lives, and continue, despite modernization, to be important to this day. The implicit argument is that because of importance in FinnishAmerican lives, we can learn more about Finnish-Americans by documenting, researching, and analyzing how saunas interweave with and structure FinnishAmerican lives. Therefore, because saunas are such an important and ubiquitous part of Finnish-American heritage, documentation, preservation, and continuation of tradition should be encouraged.Michael Nordskog espouses a general theory of Finnish-American progression in United States. As Finnish-American families improved their financial circumstances, they would concomitantly improve their sauna. At their most destitute, served also as a single room log cabin, housing family through harsh winters. With time and good fortune, a family could rise, pinnacle today being a chic, professionally designed lakeside sauna. The method here is primarily oriented toward family research, oral history, and dramatic photography, book being light on measuring and other advanced architectural research methods. The author also consults pivotal Finnish literature like The Kakvala and Seven Brothers to assess role plays in them. Crosscultural comparison is never lacking, author always taking into account both Finnish and Finnish-American tradition.The book consists of eight parts, all original, by four contributors. The foreword is written by David Salmela, a Minnesota architect who grew up in tradition and now designs award-winning saunas. The introduction, written by professor emeritus of landscape architecture at University of Wisconsin Arnold R. Alanen, presents as both a long-standing and invented Finnish tradition that has been popularized, modernized, and Americanized in nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. Sauna in New World is essentially a third introduction, this one by Michael Nordskog, author of remaining chapters, who lays out what a is and where they can be found. …

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