Friday, August 11th was a monumental day in our son's upbringing. He experienced a sauna for the first time. Not a subdued, lukewarm hotel sauna mind you. It was a stoking hot Finnish sauna! We prepared a little bathtub, scrubbed him clean and rinsed him off in the lake, just like all the grownups do! Keeping him on the ground kept the temperature low while the adults sit on the high bench, taking advantage of the billows of hot steam coming straight from the rocks on the wood stove. The Upper Peninsula has over 100,000 Finns, which makes up probably a fourth of the entire population, and is actually the highest concentration of Finnish people in the country. My mom grew up immersed in this culture! Ian's first sauna is especially memorable for me because I grew up taking them every summer at Helen Lake when we came to visit Grandma Pearl.
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