Sarah Nigbor

This is one of my favorite times of year and I know my husband thinks I’m crazy. I don’t necessarily love the arctic temperatures, but I would take cold any day over hot weather. I am of the belief that I can always add more layers and warm up, but cooling myself off on a sweltering summer day is much more difficult.

In fact, I find the cold air refreshing, almost like a bath for my lungs. Taking a deep breath of cold, clean winter air is invigorating. In fact, on Sunday night I was so overheated after a long bath that I went outside and stood on the front steps for a few minutes to cool off. It was my own mini version of a sauna.

My dad was 100% Finnish, as I’ve mentioned in previous columns. He was born into a farming/mining family on Minnesota’s Iron Range. My greatest regret, through no fault of my own, is that I don’t remember him or did I get to know him. He and my mom divorced when I was a baby and he died of a heart attack when I was only 2 while living on the Range. My mother’s family severed ties with my dad’s and I grew up not knowing them.

When I was about 19, I decided to try and find them. The internet was brand new and finding phone numbers and addresses had become much easier. I found my grandfather’s phone number and learned he was living near Eveleth, Minn. I’ll never forget my shaking hands as I called my grandfather Ero for the first time. I was absolutely terrified. What if he didn’t want to talk to me? What if he hung up?

Well, the opposite happened. He was brought to tears hearing from me and invited me to come meet him at his lake house. That was also terrifying: driving up to the Iron Range to meet a family I didn’t remember. Though the landscape of the Range was new to me, somehow it strangely felt like home. The pointed evergreens, the iron-rich red dirt roads, the granite hills, giant lakes created by old mines.

That day was like a movie. I pulled into his driveway and there he was, bounding down the steps of his cottage with the energy of a man much younger. He was a small man, wiry with muscle, kind blue eyes and a thick Finnish accent. He hugged me until I thought I’d pass out, and behind him was my cousin and uncle. I will never forget that day. Sadly, my grandma had died about three years prior. She was laid to rest next to my dad in Duluth.

My grandpa took me on a whirlwind tour of the Range and tried to show me all I had been missing. We visited my dad’s cousin, where I learned all about saunas. Shirley lived on a small lake near Ely, Minn., with her sauna next to the lake: Perfect for cooling off in winter after sauna. My grandpa said he even took rolls in the snow sometimes after sauna, and swore by its effect on his immune system.

I’m inclined to believe in the benefits of sauna, because he lived to be nearly 100 years old. I might not have a sauna at my house, but when I stand in the clear cold, I think of the Finnish grandpa I am so thankful I met.