The winter holiday blog that never got posted

After spending my Christmas with video games, it was time for another visit to Lieksa in North-Karelia, Eastern-Finland, where I used to live before my parents and I moved to Southern-Finland when I was five. Lieksa still feels like another home to me because all my father's siblings live there. And the roots run deep with the location: Looking at the genealogy of my father-line (father's father's father and so on...) they've lived there since middle-ages, at least from the 1600's.

Couple pointless facts:

• Lieksa is the city furthest from any sea in the area of Fennoscandia (Scandinavia + Finland).
• the name "Lieksa" has a Sami origin; its equivalent word in today's Northern Sami is leakša, meaning "swampy valley".

After 7 hours of driving we arrived to my uncle's house which had new inhabitants settled since the last visit:

Nappi

Melli

Two rabbits, aka. orcs, aka. household thieves, aka. bugs, aka. monkeys, aka. [insert creature] whatever my uncle had come up with.

Already the day after, it was time to bath in the Finnish traditional 'smoke sauna' or 'chimneyless sauna' that my uncle built all by himself!

Nortice the center buttress; one solid peace of tree.

I have to refer to my father of describing it:

"It's the world's best sauna."

Simple as that. If you claim otherwise, it just proofs you haven't tried it yourself.

Ukko, an old man, is always guarding the sauna.

The quality of the sauna bath is mellow (though you can get a pretty aggressive bath in the beginning if you throw a lot of water). It's much more appealing compared to electric heated sauna which can feel dry with the bath striking like a whip, if you're not gentle enough with the water.

It works different from a modern electric, or even a typical wood-heated sauna; like I said it doesn't have a chimney so the process is little different.

The several hour heating process starts with firing up the furnace and heating the big pile of rocks.

When the rocks are heated up, some häkälöyly – "carbon monoxide sauna bath" – (water) is thrown onto the pile of rocks. This will be repeated 3-4 times or more depending on the wanted duration and heat of the bath, while continuously refilling the furnace.

After several hours and the last "carbon monoxide bath" and ventilation, the sauna will be left for an hour to loom. Then, at last, all the inside surfaces of the sauna will be wiped clean from the ashes and it's ready to go.

Essentially the huge pile of rocks work as a heat accumulator, releasing warmth while bathing, keeping the sauna hot for a good 4-6 hours depending on the outside temperature and heating duration.

Everything my uncle needed to know to build it, he studied from the Internet; how to align the timbers, what materials to use, how to NOT burn the sauna (kinda essential), and all the little things like leaving enough space above windows and the door, for the sauna will subside in itself with time.

But now for the cool part:

I actually shared this picture of the mirror months ago already as a teaser, haha, well here it finally is!

This mirror is fully built by my uncle who spent 2000+ hours doing it. Just when we were visiting he made those wing candle holders as a cherry on the top of a cake. Recently he actually studied into a carpenter, though he hasn't made that into a profession since it would require getting a workshop among other procedures to try to live off of it. But at least he gets to do cool stuff with his skills. Btw, eating besides that window is like straight from the Game of Thrones, probably because of the crows resembling of Jon Snow.

More in-detail pics:

My uncle had taken some inspiration from Celtic patterns for the mirror.

The upper piece, including the crows, is carved out of one single piece of solid wood.