You’re sitting on a dock overlooking a placid lake, listening to the loons, dreaming of how good a steamy hot sauna would feel right now. You’d follow it up with a dip in the cool waters. You’ve been hearing the media constantly plug the benefits of taking a sauna, and your social media feed is full of friends treating themselves to wellness weekends. Too bad it’s all a fantasy: who’s got the money, or space, to build a sauna from scratch?
In today’s modern society, full of restaurant delivery options, Amazon, and home grocery delivery, you could spend your whole life holed up in your home fortress. North Shore sauna proprietors are seizing on the home delivery trend too. They can make your sauna dreams come true—through mobile sauna delivery to your home, cabin, wedding, or party. Here’s how Sisu + Löyly, a staple of Grand Marais sauna culture, and Silver Creek Sauna Co., based out of Two Harbors, have transformed the sauna tradition to make this steamy experience accessible anytime, anywhere, to anyone.
The sauna craze sweeping America has been hyped up ever since COVID, when people were home more, and looking to prioritize their health. Canada and northern Minnesota are no strangers to sauna culture, and have a wealth of local businesses that build home saunas, manufacture sauna stoves, operate public saunas, and even publish an online sauna magazine (saunatimes.com). These businesses have taken off around the region, capitalizing on increased awareness of sauna’s physical and mental health benefits.
Katie Usem, owner of Sisu + Löyly, a Finnish name which translates to a slogan of “Grounded in Grit, Lifted in Spirit” started her sauna business in 2021. Her flagship location is in a 100-year-old Norwegian fish house, repurposed into two public saunas on the shore of Lake Superior in downtown Grand Marais. Following the opening of the permanent location, Usem took the next step and commissioned a trailerable sauna to be handcrafted by Timber Arched, a custom sauna builder from Alexandria, Minn.
“The aesthetics were important to me, because Grand Marais and Cook County have such a strong artisan community, along with the North House Folk School. I wanted something that fit in with that handcrafted vibe,” recounts Usem of her ideal mobile sauna build. “The sauna beams were steam bent, the same way wooden ships are built, and the Gothic arch shape is really beautiful,” Usem adds about her mobile sauna, which has a capacity of six, with three different bench levels.
Usem spent the first year bringing her new mobile sauna from place to place, delivering it to people’s homes, events, and vacation rentals. It was a side business to her regular operations at her permanent saunas in Grand Marais. “A lot of people operating mobile sauna businesses also have another job that’s their primary income as they come up to speed,” says Usem. “I was already doing sauna full time at my primary location, so adding mobile fit well.”
Silver Creek Sauna Co. is a mobile sauna operated by husband-and-wife-team Stacy and Phil Nightwine. They fulfill exactly the work-life balance that Usem describes. Stacy works a full-time job at North Shore Federal Credit Union in Two Harbors, and is a yoga instructor, while Phil has his own excavating company, named Nightwine’s Land Services. “Our fun is working,” laughs Stacy.
The Nightwines say it all works out though, because their mobile sauna, which they launched three years ago, is booked mostly in winter, when Phil gets a break from excavating (his winter gig is plowing).
The Nightwines have a slogan for their sauna: “Stay steamy.” They fulfill this promise by delivering their sauna to places as far away as the Gunflint Trail. Two years ago, recounts Phil, their sauna was rented nonstop to various homes from Thanksgiving through New Years Eve, from Lutsen to Duluth, with breaks in between only for cleaning and vacuuming. That’s a lot of logistics. “It’s a good thing that I like road trips,” jokes Stacy.
Stacy got the idea for their business while using a mobile sauna at a yoga retreat in central Minnesota. She and Phil ordered a mobile sauna building kit the same day, and put the sauna together on a trailer themselves. They’ve been delivering around the region ever since.
Family reunions, gatherings, and bachelorette parties are all events for which people order sauna deliveries. The next question is how to get it there? Both Usem and the Nightwines say trailering a long building through the woods, often in mud season, can be an adventure. “Once we delivered a sauna to a home between Duluth and Two Harbors, and their driveway hadn’t been plowed all winter long,” remembers Phil. “We had to haul it in over a 2-foot-tall snowbank, then drag it down a long driveway.” “There was some pushing involved,” says Stacy. “And some swearing too,” admits Phil.
Similarly, Usem and her husband Sam have had their share of hair-raising trailering experiences. “In our first year, we did all door-to-door deliveries all over Cook County, where the majority of roads are not paved,” Usem explains. “There are some pretty tricky driveways around. I found trailering is not my favorite part.” Not surprising, considering that her sauna trailer with tongue is 26 feet long.
“We looked for a way where I’m not moving it every week. We’ve evolved a bit over these last couple years,” Usem adds.
Sisu + Löyly has found their niche through partnerships collaborating with other hospitality businesses. The last two winters their mobile sauna has been parked at North Shore Winery in Lutsen, where patrons can sign up for a rental time. “The Winery has such a foothold in Lutsen, and is a popular apres-ski destination,” says Usem. “We play off our combined strengths.”
Upon arrival at your home, sauna proprietors give a tutorial on how to use the sauna. This includes how to light the stove, how to get the sauna up to temp, and the best part—how to properly soak in the steam. There’s a laminated “cheat sheet” in the Nightwine’s wood box if you forget something.
The Nightwines’ sauna has an easy-to-light wood-burning stove, and Phil made a custom-built wood box on the front of the sauna trailer that’s full of kindling and birch wood. They don’t charge extra for firewood, and they encourage not burning your own home wood in the sauna. Their barrel sauna only takes 30 to 40 minutes to get up to temp. Their Harvia stove is made in Finland, and has a glass door for extra ambience.
Stacy and Phil hired a friend to build their website (silvercreeksauna.com). Stacy does the admin work, and contacts customers to line things up. Phil typically delivers the sauna, and Stacy typically picks it up—all upon working their full-time jobs. Of course they have their own home sauna too.
Sisu + Löyly, meanwhile, is trying something new this summer. They regularly run out of space at their two saunas at their primary location in Grand Marais, so they will keep their mobile sauna all summer this season at their Lake Superior location. “We want to see how it goes,” says Usem, who also owns a floating sauna at Skyport Lodge on Devil Track Lake, “then maybe go back to home delivery or residencies in the future.”
Ordering home sauna delivery is clearly a much smaller investment than building and maintaining your own sauna. You get the pleasure of taking a backyard sauna without any of the hassle. Rent out a local mobile sauna for a unique experience and a steamy good time.
