There is no doubt bitter cold weather and deep wind chills are dangerous, even life-threatening, but then, as a Yooper, being half- frozen is my heritage.

 

My cross-cultural upbringing (born in Michigan, raised in Wisconsin) has left me conflicted in some areas (I still have Packer mania, but am also a Jets fan, go figure), but not when it comes to sub-zero survival.  As many Yoopers are, I am of Finnish descent, on both sides, back to the invention of dirt.  And that means that I was exposed to the Finns secret weapon, the Sauna.

 (And it’s pronounced “SOW-na”, NOT “SAW-na” as the outlanders say.)

 

It is the emblem of the Great White North, where northern Wisconsin and Upper Michigan stare unblinkingly across the 30-foot expanse of the River Montreal, each side claiming the lowest temperatures, the best skiing, deepest snow banks and most asinine winter driving conditions (it’s a draw).

 

And this is not the little wood-paneled cube you find in hotels all over the country, that will produce some warm air and even a bit of steam if you throw some bottled water against the designer rocks artfully arranged atop the heater.  I’m talking the log-walled, stand-alone buildings where the fire was stoked all day long to achieve to achieve the unearthly level of heat required.

 

Granddad’s sauna had three levels of benches; the lowest (and coolest) level was for young children and visitors from parts unknown.  Level two was the testing bench, where adolescents and the untutored tried their luck against the laws of physics and thermodynamics for as long as they dared.  But the third tier was the domain of the kings of heat, where the bench was so hot the kids could not sit on it even the next day.

 

His rule was, “If you can breathe without a wet wash cloth over your nose, it isn’t hot enough!”  And it was always hot enough, when Granddad did the firing.

 

If you were lucky, your sauna was built on a lake, and you could dive into the cold, clear spring-fed water after your session in the hot box, the cold water slamming your pores shut and trapping all of the impurities broiled out of you on the surface, where they could be easily washed away.

 

Ours was, however, land-locked, so a couple of buckets of ice-cold well water were used to achieve the same effect.  Winter was different.

 

Temperatures in the GWN from Christmas to the end of February could dip to 30 below zero at any time, and often did, back in the 1960’s.  This had no effect whatsoever on Granddad, because, come what may, the show must go on when it came to the sauna.

 

The ladies always had the first choice, taking their turns in the early evening and returning to the house after an hour and a half or so, which meant it was kid time.  We moved fast then, wanting to have our turns before Granddad came in, because then things got serious.  Piling in as much wood as we dared, we threw water on the hot rocks until we couldn’t breathe for the hot steam around us, a kind of sauna Zen meditation, with sweat.

 

After a half-hour or so, we could hear the outside door swing shut, and we knew the party was over.  And there would be Granddad, wrapped in a towel with a load of wood in the crook of his arm: “Time to head for the barn, Fellas,” he’d say, tossing the wood into the cast-iron stove with a practiced grace and heading for the top bench. 

 

And out we’d go, wrapped in our towels and heading for the snow bank, where your superheated skin gave you 30 seconds of immunity from the cold as you dived into the icy crust.  Stay 35 seconds, though, and you’re immunity was suddenly revoked.  If you timed it right, you were into the snow, into the house and under the shower without feeling a thing.

 

There is just something elemental about running barefoot down a snow path in the moonlight when it is 20 degrees below zero.  You really had to be there. Or be one. Or both.

 

But Granddad, he made a night of it, staying in the hottest point in the sauna for at least an hour sometimes, longer if he had invited some of his old cronies to sauna with him, an old Finnish tradition.  That always meant revolving sessions of intense heat and steam, followed by beer and sausage and cheese, followed by more heat, ad infinitum.

 

At a certain point, Gramma would have had enough, and she would march down the path and hammer on the door, threatening to come in there and twist some ears unless the old boys came out, and  right now!

 

I don’t think she ever actually did, since the heat would have dropped her like a steer, but we all loved hearing the dialogue.

 

It was a world that will never come again, and I’m glad I got to be part of it