612 Steam Trials
Three years ago, soon-to-be Hewing Hotel co-owner Tim Dixon showed up in my backyard for a sauna night. I remember it clearly because he brought the firewood — a truckload of it…
He heard about the gatherings at my tiny-house-sauna mash-up (aka The Firehouse) from a mutual friend and sauna builder and wanted tips for hosting “authentic” sauna.
At the time I didn’t believe in authentic Sauna. I had experienced many transformative sauna sessions since discovering this nordic variety of sweat bathing as an exchange student in Helsinki in 2004, and very few of these experiences resembled a picturesque lakeside Finnish cabin.
The structures of traditional sweat bathing practices vary in every conceivable way, even within their respective tradition. The image of Sauna in most people’s minds is a beautiful cedar structure heated with a wood stove, quaintly sited next to a lake. In reality, however, the traditional picture would not necessarily include cedar, a lake, or even a stove! The room was heated with fire and smoke, both of which were then removed from the room (which was most likely built of spruce or aspen). The sauna was for bathing, especially when/where open water was not available.
Now, after hosting thousands of guests at The Firehouse, Little Box Sauna and The Forge (the nation’s first community-owned and operated mobile sauna), I’ve changed my tune. I believe that the word authentic does apply to Sauna—just not in the way most people mean it.
For the Sauna tradition, the authentic constant is not structural, it’s experiential.
Heat therapy traditions like Sauna, Banya, Hammam and the Native American Sweat Lodge share a therapeutic potential, each tradition with its own unique blend of heat, cold, steam, silence and celebration designed to trigger the full physical, mental and social benefits of the experience.
We need wellness traditions to reintroduce and resensitize us to our humanity. We need relevant and wise wellness traditions.
I founded the 612 Sauna Society Cooperative to give member-owners the opportunity of sharing the gift of sauna. Sharing something you love is a good way of keeping it alive and somehow sharing in that aliveness.
The StokeYard Project started 15 months ago when the owners of SnowTrekker Winter Camping tents, Duane and Margot Lottig, sent one my way for testing. They wanted to know how it faired compared to those I have built, hosted and experienced. What started as a weekend testing expedition has turned into more than a year of collaboration and a prototype for a new sauna space that delivers the authentic Sauna experience, without the infrastructure or investment of a conventional build.
Next stop: Hewing Hotel.
After inspiring much of my thinking around authentic Sauna, I’m helping make their rooftop experience as superb as the hotel itself. I’ll be hosting traditional aufguss steam treatments for Hewing Social Club members and guests this weekend, February 3rd from 4–8 p.m. in exchange for feedback on a short sauna survey.
Whether it’s a rooftop, trailer, tent or lakeside, I believe that authentic well-being is worth pursuing wherever we can create it.
In the United States sweat bathing practices have, until very recently, been appreciated as cultural experiences. However, the recent celebrity of Wim Hof (and the body of scientific research on thermic conditioning that has accompanied his world records and viral videos has changed the conversation. Mainstream culture has a new language to understanding, explore and share sweat thermic bathing experiences.
The ethnic origins of the experience is now one of many angles. For the first time every, I think it’s very safe to say that way more people in the United States are experiencing sauna as a part of their fitness regime than as a cultural tradition. Thanks to research of the kind that came out at the Mayo last year and subsequent coverage in mainstream channels like Time Magazine, the health benefits are better understood and more widely discussed than ever. (I’ve noticed that the health benefits of sauna have become a regular topic on some of the most popular podcasts in America, like The Joe Rogan Experience and Tim Ferris.)
I appreciate the health benefits of sauna, but it’s not why I’m passionate about it. There’s a psychological aspect of thermic bathing practices that heightens your senses and quiets your mind similar to the flow state of endurance exercise. However, unlike endurance exercise, where the practitioner is actively exerting themselves to achieve the happy blend of “flow state” endorphin, oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine, sweating requires nothing more than sitting still. Letting the body adjust to extreme heat and cold isn’t something you can talk yourself into. You have to DO it.
But in this case doing it really means letting it happen. Letting your body circulate blood to cool itself down during a round in the hot room. Breathing helps you get the oxygen you need for the job. But it can only help so much. After a few pours of steam your thermoregulatory system has cooled you down as much as it is practiced to do. But not to worry, there’s a hack, which ranges from jumping in an icy lake to moonlit steam gazing. The body tacks for a comfortable temperature by doing what it does so well, try to keep us comfortable and safe by circulating even more blood to raise the temperature as the body mass cools. As amazing as this all is, there’s very little here for the mind to do. After all, you’re literally just sitting there. I sometimes describe it as meditation in a pressure cooker.
I happened to discover this at a time that meditation was the last thing I wanted to do but most needed. I was in the process of separating from my partner of 14 years. My first love. Sauna interrupted the spinning and really experience what I was going through. As time passed I realized that the practice of sauna was as helpful during sunny times as it is the coldest dark times. I noticed that the quality of presence that the heat invites can animate positive thoughts and feelings as well.
And this is a helpful thing to feel and be reminded of in this strange new world of alternative facts. Our country and our communities have never been more distracted and divided, leaving us more vulnerable than ever to fear-mongering “leaders” whose agendas undermine the wellbeing of those they serve. We have a lot of work to do to build a vital and resilient society that can withstand and overcome the very real challenges facing our country and species (ie climate change). But people don’t protect things they don’t feel. If you don’t really feel your life, starting with your body, you’re not going to be inspired to take care of it, much less optimize it for maximum joy and impact.
See you on the bench,
John Pederson
