You see them everywhere now. Barrels on wheels, like oversized whisky casks, arranged in clusters around firepits. They appeared in town almost overnight, hauled in on trailers and parked on flat surfaces near bodies of water. In the winter, they are nestled into the urban landscape, picturesque as a scene in a snow globe. And while living here can feel like we occupy some Nordic region of the world instead of a Midwest city on a Great Lake, with our dedication to smoked fish, winter activities, and polka, our Wisconsin culture falls short of embracing one of Finland’s most fundamental recreations: the sauna.
I am hesitant to write off the slow adoption to sauna as Protestant prudishness, which might frown upon stripping down to the nude and stepping into a hot room. Rather, it could be due to the fact that Finnish immigrants populations are concentrated further north, closer to the Upper Peninsula than the Illinois border. But with the arrival of Hot Spell Sauna, The Hive, and Driftwood Sauna Club (until a recent overnight fire), it seems that Milwaukeeans are finally catching on to this Nordic tradition.
For many of us, saunas are either a luxury splurge or a pit stop between the treadmill and the shower. But to the Finnish, the sauna is a tradition and a way of life, with established etiquette and rituals. It is so important to the national identity as to be a kind of equalizer among its citizens—not a once-in-a-while luxury, but a regular practice that is valued for short-term well-being and long-term, researched-backed benefits.
But what saunas in the U.S. typically lack is the cold plunge—a nearby body of water in which to submerge yourself after heating up. In the last six years, this “contrast therapy” expanded from something elite athletes used as a way to speed up muscle recovery, to something the wellness girlies pushed as a miraculous cure-all. The meteoric rise of cold plunging (and the unsubstantiated claims that rose in parallel) smack of trending content and biohack nonsense. But since this was not invented in the goop of social media, I decided to shed my winter layers and see for myself how it felt to swim in frigid waters. I looked ahead on the weather app and booked a seat at Hot Spell for the coldest day of the week. Friends, I’ll go full tilt for the story.
Hot Spell (1750 N. Lincoln Memorial Dr.; 414-885-5598) is located beside the Roundhouse Beer Garden between the boat launch and McKinley Marina. It was a balmy 27 degrees Fahrenheit according to my weather app when I pulled up to the parking lot and chugged from my thermos of ginger tea, attempting to retain some warmth before removing most of my clothes.
The Hot Spell structures were not big rustic whisky barrels, but quite modern trailers with crisp edges and narrow windows that, from inside, framed the lake and the city. One attendant that evening, Andrew, pointed out the path between the sauna and the ramp down to the lake, and room where I could change and leave my things. I removed all layers but the shorts and rash guard and neoprene shoes, which are required for the trek between the sauna and the lake and also help stave off the cold once in the water. I noted the little chalkboard easel in the corner of the room beside a mountain of neatly stacked logs: Water Temp 39F. The lake was warmer than the air.
Hot Spell sessions are communal, meaning your booking buys you a seat among people you likely have never met, and if the sessions fill up, you’ll be sharing a full sauna with sweaty strangers. If you’re the kind of person who isn’t keen on this idea, start with a mid-week, mid-day session, when attendance is a little lower. Early mornings and evenings seem to be the busiest times. It can get pretty cozy. I settled in on the bench and attempted serenity, but the heat and the stillness seems to pressurize conversations out of attendees, and I soon began chatting with the group inside, including Andrew, who had left his post during a lull in the shift to join the sauna—one of the perks of working part-time for Hot Spell. “It can be uncomfortable to sit here with strangers in silence,” he told me. “But it’s less awkward when you make a little conversation.”
Not only does the conversation make it less awkward to sweat in a room with strangers, it provided perspective into the benefits of a regular sauna practice, and how sauna converts go on to explore and locate other sauna subcultures, like those from Russia and Korea and Japan. Hot Spell saunas can get up there in temps, and if the room stays shut for too long, the thermostat can reach a sweltering 240 degrees. For perspective: that’s the temperature I use to cook baby back ribs. Maybe even a bit hotter. During my session, it was a comfortable 180 degrees in the room, and when a ladle of water was poured over the hot stones, the room filled with a dense humidity that penetrated deep into sinus cavities.
Hot Spell is fully operational unless weather or lake conditions become unsafe. That hasn’t been often this year, even during January’s cold snap when temperatures fell below zero for almost a week. This should not deter you from jumping in the water. “We have a circulator that moves the water and keeps it from freezing,” said Andrew. “But I’ve been out there when the rain is coming in sideways. It’s not always pleasant to work those days, but we do it. I just pop in here to stock the wood more often.” That’s what I saw his counterpart, Tyler, doing from the window. She gathered wood from the massive piles, checked in guests as they arrived, standing in a parka and hat as the evening descended and clouds covered the sky.
After 15 minutes, I stepped into the small room in between the sauna and the outdoors and zipped on my neoprene shoes, psyching myself up for the coldest swim of my life. Once outside, I could immediately feel the heat rushing from my body and into the air above. Watching someone leave the sauna and begin the walk to the boat launch, steam rises off their exposed skin, forming a personal weather system that trails from the body. We don’t actually feel temperatures. What we feel is heat leaving our body. So, when you step outside of a 180-degree sauna into 27-degree weather, the air is very tolerable. But when you hoof it down a concrete ramp and plunge up to your neck in the 39-degree lake, that heat leaves your body so rapidly, you lose, in the water, even the most distant memory of warmth.
The first time I plunged, I screamed. Barely. The sound caught in my throat as a hard gasp and set off every alarm in my nervous system that suddenly blared “YOU’RE GONNA DIE!” I took quick shallow breaths and wrestled with the shock for no more than 10 seconds. Good enough for a first attempt, I thought as I scrambled my way back up the ramp and hurried into the sauna again.
One well-circulated claim from dedicated cold plungers is that the practice can reset your sympathetic nervous system, the part of your brain that tries to prevent you from swimming in a freezing lake. Once you lean into the temperature shock, the endorphin floodgates burst open and in pours the perfect cocktail of mood-enhancing, head-clarifying juices that keep cold plungers coming back for more. I passed Andrew on my way up the ramp and watched as he strolled calmly into the depths, submerged up to his chest amid still water, and gazed peacefully out at the evening horizon.
Back in the sauna, I conducted a survey. Which time of day was best for the hot-cold ritual, and why? A woman in the group said it depends, but that after an evening session at Hot Spell, “I sleep so well.” The group agreed that it was better to end with a cold dip in the morning to kick start energy levels for the day, and end with the heat in the evenings to prepare the body for rest. From the conversation that followed, I also learned that while some benefits are immediate (a spike in energy and improved mental clarity) the best benefits come from a consistent practice.
Research has not fully caught up to the claims. There is some evidence that contrast therapy helps with circulation, muscle recovery, and energy levels. But other claims, like that it burns calories or expels toxins from the body, are merely trend-fodder.
I plunged twice more. I’ll be honest, it didn’t get any easier. But by the time the session concluded and I stood drying off by the fire, my body felt charged with a low-level electric current and my mind felt a little quieter. And I met some very nice people, which added to the sense that no matter the mismatch between the benefits and claims, going for a cold swim after sitting in a hot sauna feels really good. Content fades while cultures endure, and as trends tip over to more extreme forms of self-optimization (any of our readers looksmaxxing?) Milwaukeeans can cut out the noise and explore a cool Nordic tradition on the shores of our own home.
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