Sauna Days at Lake Superior
The Practice We're Building for Life
A year ago, Steve and I drove up to the North Shore on something close to a whim. We had stumbled across an event called Sauna Days just a few weeks earlier — an annual festival at Larsmont Cottages in Two Harbors built entirely around the sauna experience. Something about it pulled at us. The combination of Lake Superior, the sauna ritual, the idea of a full weekend that had nowhere to be and nothing to do except sit in extraordinary heat and then plunge into the coldest water either of us had ever felt. We barely knew what we were saying yes to. We just said yes.
By Sunday afternoon, driving back down the shore with birch trees blurring past the windows, neither of us said much for a long time. We didn’t need to. We both already knew we were going back to Sauna Days. We already knew this was ours now.
This Friday, we leave for Two Harbors again. Sauna Days 2026 runs May 1–3 at Larsmont Cottages, and I have been looking forward to this sauna weekend since the moment last year’s ended. I want to tell you what we experienced, why it changed us, and why — if there is any part of you that is curious — I think you should find a way to be there too.
The Finns say the sauna is a poor man’s pharmacy. We came home from that first Sauna Days weekend believers. A year later, nothing has changed our minds.
But even if this particular sauna weekend isn’t in your cards, keep reading. Because what we carried home from that first Sauna Days goes far beyond a beautiful trip. We came home with a practice. A conviction. And the beginning of a plan to root the sauna ritual permanently into our life on the homestead. That’s what I want to share with you today.
SAUNA DAYS AT LARSMONT COTTAGES Two Harbors, Minnesota · Lake Superior’s North Shore
Dates: May 1–3, 2026 — starts this Friday
Location: Larsmont Cottages on Lake Superior, 596 Larsmont Way, Two Harbors, MN 55616
Experience: Mobile Saunas · Expert Sauna Talks · Cold Plunges in Lake Superior · Live Music · Bonfires · Local Craft Beer & Food Vendors · Venik Sauna Treatments · Wim Hof Breathwork · Yoga in Nature
Tickets: 3-Day Event Pass
Lodging: Onsite at Larsmont Cottages (ranked #1 hotel in Two Harbors) or at Grand Superior Lodge, 20 minutes north
THE PLACE THAT MAKES IT ALL MAKE SENSE
Larsmont Cottages is one of those places that does something to you before you’ve even unpacked. Nestled directly on the shores of Lake Superior — ranked the #1 hotel in Two Harbors — it has the feel of a property designed by someone who understood that people come to the lake to remember something they forgot they needed. Every cottage has a fireplace. The views are completely uninterrupted. The on-site Ledge Rock Grille is exceptional. And they have their own authentic, wood-fired Finnish sauna right on the waterfront, which in the context of a sauna weekend built entirely around sauna culture felt almost like a wink from the universe.
Last year, I woke up Saturday morning to fog sitting low on the lake and the smell of birch smoke already drifting in from the sauna village. I stood on the cottage porch in my robe, coffee in both hands, and thought: this is exactly what intentional living is supposed to feel like. I have thought about that sauna morning probably a hundred times since. I am genuinely giddy to feel it again this weekend.
The North Shore in early May is extraordinary — the light is soft, the air is clean, and the lake is just waking up from winter. If any part of you is leaning toward going, listen to that part.
WHAT WE LEARNED THAT FIRST SAUNA WEEKEND
I came to Sauna Days last year with a casual openness toward wellness and left with something I would describe more honestly as a reckoning. Because one of the things that sets this sauna event apart from a typical spa weekend is its education layer. Between sauna sessions, builders and practitioners lead talks on the science, tradition, and philosophy behind sauna culture. And what I heard stopped me and sent me down a research rabbit hole for weeks afterward.
The sauna is not a trend. It is not a biohacking shortcut dressed up in cedar and steam. It is a practice woven into Finnish, Scandinavian, and Northern European culture for thousands of years — and modern science is now methodically confirming what those cultures have always intuitively understood. The old Finns built their saunas before they built their homes. That single fact has never left me.
Come Inside. The Heat Is On.
Paid subscribers get the full letter — the sauna ritual we’ve built into our lives since last year’s Sauna Days, our wood-fired sauna build plans for the homestead, the builders we trust, what to budget, and a front-row seat to everything unfolding for us on the North Shore this weekend. Plus the complete guide to making the sauna practice genuinely yours.
