In search of the best saunas around Lake Superior

It is never a good idea to pause between a 194-degree sauna and the mind-bending frigidity of Lake Superior. As sweat cools on skin, the rational mind kicks in. Why submit the body to such unrelenting shock, it asks. I know this voice well. Yet here I am, on a cobblestone beach in Grand Marais, Minn., with precious heat steaming off my head, pausing to contemplate the wave-sculpted ice growing toward the sky like stalagmites.

By the time the lapping waves hit my calves, my feet are already numb. The air temperature is 30 degrees, a heat wave for February. So, I take the plunge, submerging myself into the 34-degree water long enough to feel the full-body electric tingle before hurrying back to the warm embrace of Sisu + Löyly Nordic Sauna (its Finnish name translates to “Grit + Steam”). With a red exterior and a dramatic perch on a jagged rock ledge above the lake, this 90-minute, $86 private experience makes me feel like I’ve been transported to a spa on the Baltic Sea.

Back in the sauna, I ladle water onto the electric stove, which is a pile of rocks in a wire basket, and wait for the löyly to wash over me, relaxing every muscle. As I take in the darkened sky above a slate-gray winter lake, framed like a painting by the picture window, I realize that if I’m going to make it through this 750-mile-long, sauna-hopping road-trip, I’m going to need to drink more water.

The culture of sauna — the only commonly used Finnish word in the English language — is exploding in the United States. The U.S. sauna market is projected to grow to $526 million by 2028.

There’s still some question about the health benefits that saunas provide, but one would be hard-pressed to find anyone in the Upper Midwest who does not believe in the life-giving properties of the hot-cold, one-two punch, especially the ever-expanding cadre of saunapreneurs, like Duluth-based Justin Juntunen. With his business partner, Joel Vikre, Juntunen created Cedar + Stone Nordic Saunas. They host tens of thousands of people each year in their own sauna “experience” locations, including one on the rooftop of the Four Seasons Hotel in Minneapolis. They also design and build commercial sauna projects around North America. And they design and build private residential saunas that average $50,000 to $80,000 a pop.

The crown jewel in Cedar + Stone’s growing inventory of community saunas is built atop a 40,000-pound barge that floats in a small slip off the Duluth Harbor adjacent to Pier B Resort.

It looks like an upscale Ikea toy boat, with sleek lines, a rooftop deck with jumping platform, and a back deck where sauna-goers can chill out. Roughly 50 yards down the pier is an enclosed plunge pool with a circulating pump that keeps the water from icing over and two ladders that descend into the frigid harbor water.

Inside the sauna, which comfortably fits 10, are two powerful Iki Finnish stoves with a window to their fiery innards. Their steampunk look matches the industrial surroundings. My partner Brian and I enjoy the 200-degree heat in silence, basking in the glow of the city lights through ample windows and feeling the sway of the barge, propelled by winds gusting up to 20 mph outside.

I sleep well that night and am still so relaxed the next morning that I forget to make coffee for our drive to Bayfield, Wis.

Our next stop, Sauna Haus, is in the middle of the 100-acre Wild Rice Retreat designed by David Salmela, the Minnesota architect renowned for his modernist Scandinavian style. Guests stay in one of three room configurations, all of which have light wood interiors and oversized windows overlooking the mixed hardwood forest, and they can choose from myriad retreats. (When we visited, the resort was offering day passes to the sauna for $20 a person, though it now is open only to guests; a two-night Resort Stay package for two starts at $758.)

We make a beeline for the sauna, a stand-alone building that resembles a Finnish farmhouse. With wide, long benches, the sauna is large enough to host an intimate hot yoga class, but it’s midmorning and we have the place to ourselves. Through the small window is a distant view of Lake Superior and the electric stove is maxing out at 150 degrees. The warmth feels calming, but it’s not nearly hot enough to make a run for the lake.

To drive an additional 215 miles to the tip of Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula, which juts like a hitchhiking thumb into Lake Superior, merely to take a sauna seems off-kilter. So, we make a day of it, stopping to Nordic-ski at Active Backwoods Retreat, a trail system near the town of Ironwood with almost 47 miles of groomed trails.

When we reach our last stop, Takka Superior (“Takka” means fireplace in Finnish), 3 miles west of Copper Harbor near the tip of the peninsula, we meet our sauna host, Megan East, who is wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with the words “Cold Water Swim Club.”

“Our last guests jumped in the lake eight times!” she says, leading us down a private path to the sauna, which opened in August 2023 and was so popular that owners Jason and Lynn Makela decided to keep it open all winter despite closing their adjacent resort, Fresh Coast Cabins, for the season. Then they collaborated with Juntunen to grow their Upper Peninsula sauna empire to include a sauna experience in nearby Hancock, Mich. Takka Portage opened in time for Halloween.

Takka Superior, which has a changing room, an interior cooling-off area, and a sliding-glass door leading to a deck, sits so close to Lake Superior that waves from winter storms splash on the full-size window that frames the jagged shoreline and lake beyond. It offers private, $65-per-person, 75-minute sauna sessions.

Inside it’s 201 degrees, the stove stoked with wood cut on the Makelas’ 23-acre property. The sauna temperature boils my blood in the best possible way and I’m ready to dive into Lake Superior after about 15 minutes of steaming.

So we can cross the ice-covered rocks to the shoreline, they’ve provided us each with a trekking pole and neoprene bootees that we use to access a perfectly round natural wading pool, bridged by a layer of ice. The air temperature is 36 degrees, two degrees warmer than the water. I lower myself into the shallow water and linger as long as I can, lasting less than a minute.

The lake is so calm, the breeze is so light, and the sun is so brilliant in the blue sky that it feels like a surreal Midwest summer day. On the spiritual patina scale, this sauna rates about a nine. It would be a perfect 10 if our sauna never had to end.