Wisconsin is experiencing a surge in sauna culture — new businesses are popping up in parks, on shorelines and in backyards.
But heat bathing has been a part of the Upper Midwest culture for over a century and it’s largely thanks to the Finnish immigrants who settled along Lake Superior.
Bridget Fogarty is the west suburbs reporter with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and she recently visited a few saunas (pronounced sow-nah) to learn more about this tradition.
“For Nordic cultures, the sauna has been an important space, and Wisconsin's roots with it really date back to the late 1800s,” Fogarty says. “Saunas are the place that people would bathe on Saturday nights before Sunday church… It’s a place where people would give birth and get through illness. It’s also a place where people would meet for important conversations. This was really cool to learn about because that tradition has changed and shifted over generations.”
She spoke with Lake Effect’s Xcaret Nuñez about her feature on sauna culture and shared why more people are sweating through Wisconsin winters together.
“I think that some of the resounding reasons why people are flocking to these businesses is the wellness aspect of how it makes their body and their mind feel,” Fogarty says. “It can be a quiet time to focus inward and connect with yourself, but I think people are also visiting saunas because it gets them off their phones and connected with other people and with themselves.”
You can read more about Fogerty’s feature on sauna culture, the saunas she visited across Wisconsin and her reporting process by visiting the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s website.
Forgarty and Nuñez also visited Hot Spell Sauna at the McKinley Marina to try a Finnish sauna experience together.
