Once upon a time, the people we call Finns today were nomads.
They wandered the far north as many other peoples wandered other parts of the world, making a livelihood from hunting and gathering.
Then came a change in the way they did business.
They started trading furs for goods from Central Europe, and they established settled communities, eventually turning to farming.
At some point in their long history as a people, the Finns came up with an idea that would prove a gift to all mankind: the sauna.
No one knows when the custom began.
Surely, it was like many other customs and evolved over long centuries.
Perhaps it started shortly after the discovery of fire or later when someone realized that sweating in a hot, fur-covered lodge had a relaxing and rejuvenating effect.
Whatever its origins, the sauna most likely came to the world from the Finns.
It might have been their ancestors who gave the gift to the people who would cross the ancient land bridge over the Bering Strait and become the tribes of Native Americans whose sweat lodges were sacred spaces.
Efforts to eliminate saunas because they presented a moral danger were common in some countries, especially after 1700.
In fact, most of Europe was rendered sauna-less because the Church banned them.
In Sweden, though, the fight against saunas was based more on economic and health reasons.
The economists of the time thought saunas were a waste of firewood.
Doctors decided they were a source for the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.
There was some truth to their claims.
Daily sauna use did burn a lot of firewood, and prostitutes frequented the "baths.
" Also in the 1700s, the Swedes tried to get the Finns to give up their saunas.
The Swedes told the Finns that sauna use caused all sorts of terrible disorders, from tumors and blindness to convulsions and premature aging of the skin.
The Royal College of Surgeons even claimed that sauna use caused children to die young.
But the Finns were not so easily dissuaded.
They were hard-working people who appreciated their relaxation time and wanted to make the most of it.
They used saunas as places for women to give birth, to perform surgeries and for other purposes that are no longer served there.
And somehow they survived and thrived.
The Finns got the sauna thing going, and they've never abandoned it.
But the technology has changed, especially with the advent of the far infrared sauna and the latest addition, carbon infrared saunas.
They wandered the far north as many other peoples wandered other parts of the world, making a livelihood from hunting and gathering.
Then came a change in the way they did business.
They started trading furs for goods from Central Europe, and they established settled communities, eventually turning to farming.
At some point in their long history as a people, the Finns came up with an idea that would prove a gift to all mankind: the sauna.
No one knows when the custom began.
Surely, it was like many other customs and evolved over long centuries.
Perhaps it started shortly after the discovery of fire or later when someone realized that sweating in a hot, fur-covered lodge had a relaxing and rejuvenating effect.
Whatever its origins, the sauna most likely came to the world from the Finns.
It might have been their ancestors who gave the gift to the people who would cross the ancient land bridge over the Bering Strait and become the tribes of Native Americans whose sweat lodges were sacred spaces.
Efforts to eliminate saunas because they presented a moral danger were common in some countries, especially after 1700.
In fact, most of Europe was rendered sauna-less because the Church banned them.
In Sweden, though, the fight against saunas was based more on economic and health reasons.
The economists of the time thought saunas were a waste of firewood.
Doctors decided they were a source for the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.
There was some truth to their claims.
Daily sauna use did burn a lot of firewood, and prostitutes frequented the "baths.
" Also in the 1700s, the Swedes tried to get the Finns to give up their saunas.
The Swedes told the Finns that sauna use caused all sorts of terrible disorders, from tumors and blindness to convulsions and premature aging of the skin.
The Royal College of Surgeons even claimed that sauna use caused children to die young.
But the Finns were not so easily dissuaded.
They were hard-working people who appreciated their relaxation time and wanted to make the most of it.
They used saunas as places for women to give birth, to perform surgeries and for other purposes that are no longer served there.
And somehow they survived and thrived.
The Finns got the sauna thing going, and they've never abandoned it.
But the technology has changed, especially with the advent of the far infrared sauna and the latest addition, carbon infrared saunas.