ACROSS THE COUNTRY
Sweating Buckets, and Loving It: Minnesotans and Their Saunas
Saunas in the state, part of a tradition with roots in the 1800s, have been especially popular since the pandemic as more people seek a communal experience.
WHY WE’RE HERE
We’re exploring how America defines itself one place at a time. For people in Minnesota, the sauna is a link to the past and a way to form new bonds.
Shivering in frozen lakes and sweating in saunas for hours has helped Ernesto Londoño make peace with Minnesota winters, which were a shock to the system when he moved from Brazil two years ago.
Jumping in a hole in a frozen lake during a subzero Minnesota winter evening is brutal. Your body spasms and you start to hyperventilate. Pain is sharpest in your toes and fingers as the skin turns bright pink. Teeth chattering uncontrollably, you ask yourself: What on earth was I thinking?
On the banks of Lake Minnewashta in Excelsior, just outside Minneapolis, the answer lies in a dimly lit, wood-burning barrel-shaped sauna a few feet away. Inside, a gaggle of strangers shared laughs, words of encouragement and audible sighs of delight on a recent night as we took turns cycling between the icy water and the steamy refuge cranked up to 190 degrees.
Minnesotans have begun partaking in a version of this ritual in droves as a tradition imported by the state’s Nordic settlers in the late 1800s has gone mainstream. Since 2000, and particularly after the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been an explosion of sauna ventures in Minnesota and the broader upper Midwest catering to the growing ranks that have come to love the freeze-sweat cycle ritual. While cold plunging is not obligatory — and some opt out — most of the new sauna venues encourage even mild forms of cold exposure, like dumping a bucket of cold water on your head.