The last time I had the opportunity to use a real birch made
vihta was back in the late sixties; that was in northern Canada. I am a
first generation Finn and the sauna and vihta have always played an important
role in my life. Whenever and wherever we went for a sauna, vihtas were always
on hand. The folks with the sauna always provided their guests with them. I
never had the opportunity to learn about the making or the handling of them
until recently.
As a teenager living in the Chicago land area, my dad had built a sauna
but the sauna whisk was never in the picture. The traditional sauna whisk was
made of birch which is pretty much non existent in this area except for a few
which might be found in forest preserves and they are protected. There was no
thought regarding an alternative to birch until I had a real urge to find one.
There was something about the use of a sauna whisk in the sauna which was on my
mind for years but never really came into play until I built my own sauna.
I
had a big urge to experience the vihta again after several decades. The purpose
of it is to massage the muscles and joints by beating one self with the vihta. The
soft leaves are perfect for a great massage while in the sauna. Birch leaves
give off a wonderful odor and the stained water after dipping it in a bucket of
water can be used to wash your hair. It has some wonderful properties in there
which makes your hair glisten with nutrients. I even drove 5 hours north to an
area that had birch trees so that I could harvest a few for my sauna. But alas
they were filled with worms and by the time I got home a few days later and was
ready to use them, the leaves had fallen off.
I got on the internet and did a bit of research and found a
few alternatives to birch vihtas. Many of them just weren’t available locally
and what was were protected. If you got caught, there would be a stiff fine and
jail time involved, so I decided not to pursue that avenue. I decided to try
various other trees and bushes that were in my back yard to see whether they
might be a good candidate. I have lilac bushes, cotton wood, elm, apple,
cherry, juniper, maple and mulberry trees.
The elm, apple and cherry trees were all infested with worms
and the leaves were almost eaten with big holes in them. The branch
configurations weren’t quite right either for what I wanted. The lilac bushes
were beautiful with large dark green leaves and perfect stems/branches however,
although they added a wonderful odor in my sauna, they fell apart almost
immediately. The juniper boughs are similar to cedar which also gave me a
wonderful aroma to my sauna but I ended up with juniper needles everywhere. My
maple trees had worms on them but I was able to harvest enough for one small
vihta. The odor was magnificent but the leaves fell off very quickly. I think
that the leaves weren’t quite mature enough during harvest as they were still
light in color. They need to be dark green. I haven’t given up on maple quite
yet and will give them another try in the near future, provided the leaves
haven’t been eaten by worms.
The cotton wood leaves could easily be mistaken for birch
from a distance. They have nice dark color to them and have big leaves about
the size of a birch leaf. The stem is a bit longer and I wonder how they will
hold out. My tree is too tall to get to the leaves but there are several not
too far from me which I will have to try soon as well. I harvested some mulberry
branches this morning. While bunching them together, I found a tick on one of
the leaves. Fortunately I discovered it in time and cut the leaf off making
sure not to make contact with the tick. Ticks will not jump on you; they will
only get on you by contact. I finished making my vihta and stuck them into
water like a bouquet of flowers and just got done using them. I dunked the
leaves into warm water just before using them and to my amazement, the leaves
held together. They did a wonderful job acting as a vihta although they did not
give off any odor. I feel so relaxed after a great massage with the vihta.
Mulberry branches will definitely be on my list.
Keep in mind that these sauna whisks/vihtas can only be used
once. I thought about ordering a few through the internet but the shipping from
Europe or Finland
is just not worth it for one time use. More to come as I try making vihtas from
different sources.
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