Engadine — Do you know what the Finnish flag looks like? It’s pretty similar to Norway’s, Sweden’s, Denmark’s and Iceland’s. It’s a dark blue Nordic cross set on a white background.
Seen one recently?
Unless you have spent much time in the U.P., probably not. That’s the only place in Michigan I’ve seen Finnish flags flying in the wild. Why do they fly here of all places?
As is the case with all stories of immigration and settlement, the story is complicated, but I’ll keep it brief. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, somewhere around 350,000 Finnish immigrants came to the U.S. Many of these Finns ended up settling in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the U.P.
It makes sense. It’s pretty cold in Finland. It’s pretty cold up here. Better economic opportunities in a climate that somewhat resembles your homeland is a win-win for a new arrival.
You’ve probably heard of the Sun Belt, the stretch of land running from South Carolina all the way over to Southern California, but have you heard of the Sauna Belt? That’s the U.P., Northern Wisconsin, and Northern Minnesota. The Finns moved to this northern stretch of land and brought their dear saunas with them. And thank God for that.
Saunas are big these days. Cold plunges, ice baths, red lights, and saunas. These things are all the rage. But there is wanting a sauna, and there is needing a sauna. There is the online heath-conscious trend follower who loves a delightful sauna when it’s 45 degrees outside, and then there is the sauna of necessity. The sauna of the frozen North. The Finnish sauna. The traditional one.
There’s a cold that gets into your bones here. You don’t know it until you know it. It’s not just a chill. It’s deeper. You try and try but you just can’t get warm. This is where the Finns and their blessed saunas enter the equation. When it’s gray for days and it feels like the icy atmosphere is suffocating you slowly, the sauna might become your best friend. That scorching hot cedar box is the strangest thing imaginable in the summer, but a Godsend in the merciless winter of the Upper Peninsula.
Engadine is a small unincorporated municipality, with no defined boundaries and no clear population statistics. It’s west of St. Ignace, just off US-2, and quite small. There’s a post office, a gas station, a restaurant, some small houses, and the Upper Peninsula Sauna Company. In late January, the streets are covered in thick packed snow. The biting wind relentlessly beats the shingles outside, but it’s warm in the workshop where the builders of Engadine craft cedar saunas all winter long.
There’s classic rock playing on a radio, and an open pack of Camels on a plywood table. Every few minutes the grinding screech of a power drill interrupts the silence. There’s a partially completed 11-foot sauna in the middle of the room.
Eric Nalette manages the workshop. He’s tall and friendly. Wearing a short beard, baseball cap, and a sawdust-glazed blue sweatshirt, he walks me through everything I need to know about how they build their saunas here in the middle of the U.P.
Eric tells me they’ve built 279 saunas since they opened in 2014. It takes about 80 man hours to build one. About a week, from start to finish. Their barrel saunas are unique in that they are actual barrels, not just cylinders like lots of other saunas. He takes me over and explains how the middle bows out to make a true barrel shape. It seems like a small detail, but it makes the sauna stronger.
Eric explains to me that their cedar comes from Cedarville over on the eastern side of the U.P. The stones they use are Lake Superior granite stones taken from the Soo. The steel isn’t from the U.P., but the guy who welds it is. He’s right in Engadine too. The saunas they make here truly are local. Brought to the U.P. by the Finns long ago and embraced by the other brave residents in these dark northern woods, the sauna is now an organic part of U.P. life.
There is something striking about the material localism of the saunas they build in Engadine. The wood and the stone, pulled from the earth and water by man, molded by hand, and then brought together through human ingenuity. All of this is done to make the violent winter bearable when you can’t take it anymore.
In the saunas of Engadine, natural materials drawn from this harsh land become a place of scorching respite during the stark, frozen winter.
O.W. Root is a writer based in Northern Michigan, with a focus on nature, food, style, and culture. Follow him on X @NecktieSalvage.
