Celestial Bodies: a Review of Sisu + Löyly, Grand Marais

In the Kalevala, Ilmatar is a goddess of the heavens
Ilmatar (1860) by Robert Wilhelm Ekman, Finnish National Gallery

I am inaugurating this blog about sauna and story with thoughts about the sun, the stars and the night sky. We were in Grand Marais, Minnesota this past weekend and the schedule included a sauna at the local establishment and aurora borealis viewing. Earth was experiencing one of the strongest solar storms in 20-some years and the area around Grand Marais offers one of the darkest skies in the world: prime circumstances to view northern lights. Our hosts for the weekend are members of Starry Skies North, a group that promotes the benefits and beauty of dark skies.

Northern Lights as viewed from Wildflower Cottage, Lutsen, Minnesota (photo Jack Steinmann)

Since the darkest time of night is about half-way through, we stumbled out of bed at 2 a.m. to check the sky. Directly overhead, we saw ribbons of light radiating from a central point; along the horizon there were glowing streaks of green and pink. In the book Spirits Dancing: The Night Sky, Indigenous Knowledge, and Living Connections to the Cosmos, this particular pattern of lights is described as an aurora corona which usually appears “directly overhead in the sky, as rays of light which seem to pulse like a heartbeat, they fall toward you from the center of the corona, showering you with light.”

This book features Northern Minnesota’s own Travis Novitsky and his stunning photographs of dark skies painted with auroras and saturated with stars. Astrophysicist  Annette S. Lee’s text offers star stories from Indigenous and scientific perspectives. Lee writes, “The idea that everything you need is in the stars–that you can just sit quietly under a dark night sky–means that there is a great deal of importance in simplicity, in stillness, in taking in a celestial shower.”

Our follow-up to showering beneath the northern lights was to bathe again along the shore of Lake Superior at Sisu and Löyly Nordic Sauna. The sauna business, opened in 2021, is named for sisu, that Finnish word that, when applied to sauna, asks, can you take the heat? and löyly, the steam that rises like the mist off a northern Minnesota lake when water is splashed onto the stones of a sauna stove. 

While the sauna is located in the busy part of town, there is a privacy fence that shields its double sauna cabin and the surrounding yard right on the shoreline from a neighboring gas station and hotel. We booked a private sauna for two in the late afternoon. Since it was a touristy peak weekend, the cost was $79 per person, plus tax it came to $86. A more affordable experience is offered to residents with mid-week community sauna sessions at $18 per person + tax.

As we checked in at their main building, we were directed to the changing room with its supply of clean terry cloth robes, towels and slippers. The rather spartan lounge was stocked with water bottles and tea. We were offered a bucket of water to bring to our sauna (to conjure some löyly) and scented with our choice of Rento scents, a good Finnish brand of fragrance; we chose birch.  

Once inside the sauna, we loved the picture window view of Lake Superior–it looked out over the east bay and Artist’s Point, a rocky, piney mini peninsula. The temperature was an excellent 195 degrees generated by a hive shaped stove.

The hour and half went by quickly as we enjoyed the heat of the sauna and breaks by the fire pit in the yard. We were determined to add a cold plunge to the experience. The outdoor shower was not yet connected for the season so we were told we could walk beyond their property, past the neighboring businesses and the house with no trespassing signs posted, several yards to the public beach. It seems a shame that there is not more direct access to the lake from the sauna–we were otherwise so close!

By the time we walked to the lake we had cooled off. The water, a choppy reflection of the grayish sky, was cold and the beach pebbles were big enough to make wading in a tricky affair (next time, I’ll wear water socks). Nevertheless, we found enough sisu to get wet and refreshed. When we were done, we rinsed off in the showers of the reception building. 

My afterthoughts include–I would have liked a woodfired stove sauna experience. I am still a pagan worshipping at the ancient altar of a wood burning fire. When it comes to sauna, I devoutly believe that a truly Nordic sauna must be heated by wood. As Glenn Auerbach writes in SaunaTimes, a wood fired sauna produces more deeply penetrating heat, fresher air flow and better löyly than electric. At least we were able to watch the embers and sniff the smoke of the campfire to be reminded of the sauna ritual of preparing and burning the wood.

However, I would be remiss if I did not admit to doubting my faith. We chose an electric stove for our backyard sauna because we live in the center of a dense urban environment and we just can’t argue against the fact that burning wood adds to pollution. The question seems to be one of determining the tipping point. I wonder, are we facing a future without fire? Whatever drove the decision to heat with an electric stove at Sisu and Löyly, their choice of a HUUM electric stove from Estonia is a good one. (In Estonian, huum is a word that refers to the glow of the fire.) The handsome hive design of the stove reminds me of ancient clocháns in Ireland. It holds many more rocks than the typical sauna stove which may explain the thorough heat it provided as well as the gentle puff of löyly.

As someone who has been coming to Grand Marais for several decades now, a public sauna is a new and welcome addition to the town that overall has a fairly Nordic vibe thanks to excellent Alpine and Nordic ski trails (Lutsen Mountain and the Norpine Trail System, for two examples), the North House Folk School and  the Angry Trout Cafe where you can get Lake Superior salmon and a lingonberry topped desert called Swedish creme. As my old Swedish dad would say, Skål på fisken! We raise our glass to the fish, to sisu and löyly and to Ilmatar and the beautiful dancing spirits of the night sky.