Page M10 August 8, 1990. This Week: NOSTALGIA Finns brought us three priceless gifts It’s been five years now since I pulled up my tent pegs and moved from Thunder Bay to the fleshpots of southern Ontario. The other day somebody asked me what I missed most about my old stomping grounds on the shores of Lake Superior. I took a deep breath and prepared to un- load my usual monologue about close friends, gullet-gripping sunsets, clean air, no traffic... That's what I intended to talk about, but when I opened my mouth what popped out was “Saunas.” I miss the saunas. One of the better kept secrets of this country is the fact that northern Ontario contains the largest concentration of people of Finnish descent outside of Finland itself. The Finns, who are not a flamboyant people, have nevertheless bequeathed the planet three priceless gifts: FRUSTRATED WITH FLEAS? WE CAN HELP! 3M FLEA CONTROL SEMINARS Tuesday August 14th Esquimalt Rec Centre - 386-6128 Wednesday - August 15th Experimental Farm - 652-4312 TIME: 7:30 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. DOOR PRIZE - PET & PREMISE FLEA CONTROL KIT Cutting Bench | Crimpers Ud. the cutting edge in hair technology PRICE LIST Cross country skis. Sibelius. The sauna. The Finnish sauna is ancient. Finns have been going into little overheated houses, taking off their clothes and sweating themselves clean for at least two thousand years. _ And wherever Finns migrated they always took along their sauna floor plans. In the late years of the last century, large numbers of Finnish navvies came to Canada to help punch a rail line across this country. Many of them got no farther than northern Ontario, where the land they saw reminded them so much of their homeland they quit their jobs and bought achunk ofit. And the first build- ing that went up on all those chunks of land was a tiny shack the chief furnishings of which were a wood stove in one corner and tiers of benches in the other. Itmakes sense when you think about it. The Finns could live in their saunas while their more elaborate houses went up. Saunas could also be used for curing meat and drying crops, for grain storage — even as a nursery. Many a Finn was born in the family sauna — and why not? It was the warmest, the snuggest and certainly the cleanest room for miles around. Basic-B aek i 2) 2. By ARTHUR BLACK It was also a different kind of sauna then the ones you find in modern hotels beside the swim- ming pool or tucked into subur- ban basements next to the rec room. Purists say that to enjoy a real sauna you have to have a wood-fired stove, not the Yup- pified electric gizmos most ~ saunas use. Well; having had both, I'd have to say there is a difference. Somehow your skins feels silkier and your bed feels softer after a wood-fired sauna. On the other hand, a wood- fired sauna is definitely more trouble and work. It’s also quite tricky to get just the right temperature — somewhere be- tween a low broil and a blast furnace inferno that] turn you into a grease spot quicker than you can say open the door, Hinar. But it’s worth the effort. I still remember the first sauna I en- countered. It was behind a farmhouse I rented on the out- skirts of Thunder Bay. The @ sauna was rickety clapboard, — about the size ofa small chicken coop, with a rusty stove made out of an old oil barrel in one corner. There was a cairn of rocks and a tin can nailed to a stick to ladle water out of the wooden bucket and on to the rocks to make steam. The anteroom where you shucked your clothes was made smaller by a half cord of: split birch, stove-size and ready for burn- ing. Can I convince you that sitting naked in clouds of steam until the perspiration rolls off in&® rivulets, then running out and jumping in a cold lake or evena snowbank — actually feels wonderful? Can I make you believe that? Probably not. Unless you're already a sauna lover. In which case, chances are when you've read this paper you ll roll it up, light one end and stick it in the oven to fire up your sauna. Well, all I can say is, lay out a towel on the bench for me. I won't be there, but I wish I could be. Yep, sure miss the saunas. & Le _ MON., TUES., SAT.: 9-6 WED., THURS., FRI.: 9-8 APPOINTMENT NOT ALWAYS NECESSARY SERVING YOU FROM 6 GREATER VICTORIA LOCATIONS 1841 FORT ST. 595-2423 2616 JACKLINRD. 474-3241 GATEWAY VILLAGE 381-3351 103-300 GORGERD. 361-4948 915 ESQUIMALT RD. 380-1838 MARINER VILLAGE MALL656-0752 NI 3 Do Celebrity Rohde Helena Selby Bally Florsheim Naturalizer Contoura Niccolini to 60% OF F 0 and many more “the experienced fitters” 742 Yates Street (Up from Birks) (3) 383-7815 Determination of a two-year-old too hard for chickens to handle nyone who has ever raised a child can tell you something about the determination of a wo-year-old. What comes to mind when anyone mentions it to me is the dogged determination with which my city cousin Bill pursued the farm chickens. Mind you, he was only down for a couple of weeks in the sum- mer, but even that was long enough to take hen minds of evidence. And as usual, there were no chickens in sight. What was unusual is that Bill wase® in sight either, and Bill was a child who always made his presence known. We were sent to look for him. The barnyard was the logical choice. We headed in that direc- tion. Nearing the corner of the pumphouse, we. thought we heard something. We stopped to listen. The sound was muffled, but we thought - it might be our quarry. Then, as we turned the corner, there he was. Well, at least part of him. And we knew at a glance what had happened. laying. And since eggs were at that Having lost the last of the hens to the haven of the hen- house, he decided to follow. time crucial to the farm economy, my father took a rather dim view of Bill’s ac- tivities. We tried threaten- ing, we tried cajoling, and in the end, his Mom even spanked him, all to no avail. He was a difficult child not to adore. Round and firm, a sturdy little boy with blonde hair and big dark eyes, and tanned brown as a berry ... such attractive packaging for a will of iron. =Goldenrod- By IVY KENT That day he was dressed for the heat . . . nothing on him expect a well padded pair of white training pants. And of course they were his downfall. He was firmly stuck in the little door, half in, half out. Our view was of white pants wedged firmly in the hole, and a pair of dirty heels kicking futilely. The view the hens had was the noisy end. We opened the main door and looked in. All The only good thing about it was that with Bill there, we didn’t have a solitary chicken in the garden. But for that matter, we didn’t have them anywhere else, either. He wasn’t satisfied until there wasn’t a feathered creature in sight. For a two-year-old, that kid could sure move. He wasn’t happy until he had rounded them all up and chased them back inside the chickenhouse. Some poor hen would run squawking for cover, and disappear from sight in through the little square hole that was her access to safety. Luckily the kid hadn’t latched on to the fact that if he found something on which to climb, he could reach the handle of the main door. Instead, one hot summer’s day, the inevitable happened. Our first inkling that something was up, was that the place was unusually quiet, even the farm cats were no longer in the chickens were crowded to the back of the henhouse, under the roosts. That is, with the exception of the old rooster who hopped back and forth, wings extended, keeping this vociferous intruder at bay. We looked down at Bill. His face was purple, and the noise made our ears ring, but there wasn't a tear in his eye. He was mad clear through. Once we stopped him screaming, and kept his arms from thrashing about, it was easy enough to stuff him back through the hole in the direction from which he came. Once outside, after a couple of whiffs of clean air, his complexion returned to normal. And the old rooster must have had the final _ word, while they were nose to beak, as Bill # seemed to lose his interest in chickens after that little episode.