The last time I visited Finland I was researching saunas. I visited lots of them and a couple of building supply companies. I was getting ready to have a sauna built in my house in The Netherlands, so I wanted to learn as much as I could about both the traditional way of building a sauna and the best modern day techniques as well.
It was in the summer, and I visited a friend of mine in Helsinki. He owned some land and a little summer place farther north in Finland, so we went up there. He had a genuine Laplander tent called a Kota on his property. We sat in it as it got dark, built a fire in the center of it, and made tea. It is amazing the similarity to the tents that the native American were using.
Here is a short video of the inside of one that I found on You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uivyQ9E-ins
Driving back south to Helsinki that night I remember thinking that it was about 11:00 at night, and if I had to I could drive with no headlights. In fact I did briefly turn them off, but that kind of freaked out my wife. It was almost the midnight sun.
What made me think of all this is the picture I saw this morning from the Library of Congress. It dates to 1890-1900 and is not some tourist photo…this was reality back before snowmobiles and prefabricated housing.
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