Why Scandinavians Love Winter (and How Canadians Can Too)
Since I was a kid, I’ve always loved the winter. I have many fond memories, growing up in Alberta’s prairies: ice skating on our pond, family ski trips, sledding in the coulees. But one memory always stands out: when I was 10, and my older brothers were 15 and 17, we thought the best thing to do with the mountains of snow in our backyard was to build an igloo. Being the youngest sibling, I was so happy to be involved, helping cut up snow blocks, shaping them and stacking them on top of each other. When the igloo came together, I couldn’t believe how we only needed snow to build it. After a week of hard work, our igloo was finished, and I crawled inside. I remember thinking how warm it was. We had made our own little oasis in the midst of winter.
However, as I’ve gotten older, my search for an oasis in winter has become more about hiding from it. My once-favourite season has started to arrive with more dread than excitement. Rather than exciting adventures, winter brings literal and figurative dark clouds that fill the sky and my mind alike. It becomes more difficult to connect with people. It’s harder to get out of bed. The long nights come early, and I hide inside my home, finding a type of hibernation from December to March instead of taking part in the winter that I loved.
During this year’s hibernation, I found a book called Wintering by Katherine May, a British author from Whitstable, UK. She describes how going through difficult times in our lives can be like an internal season of wintering. She talks about “the power of rest and retreat during difficult times,” and how our bodies heal from this. Taking advice from Mother Nature, she sees winter as a time to purposefully slow down and rest, and I realized maybe I need that, too.
May references a few Scandinavian rituals she adopted to navigate the winter months, and I became intrigued by these rituals because of my own Scandinavian ancestry. My mother’s great-grandparents moved to the Alberta Prairies from Norway in 1909 to start farming. Reading the book, I became interested in learning more about how Norwegians, and other Scandinavian countries, tackle the winter and whether there are practices we could adopt in Canada. According to a study by the Happier Lives Institute, in 2025, Finland, Denmark and Sweden were among the top five happiest countries in the world, yet they are known for their dark winters, with only six to seven hours of sunlight per day.
So, despite the darkness, what makes them so happy?
This is how my journey to find ways to un-cocoon myself and begin embracing the winter months started.
May writes, “The sauna has an almost spiritual significance in the Finnish psyche, acting as a place of relaxation and retreat, particularly in those winter months.” So, the sauna had to be my first stop. Saunas have become intertwined with the national culture of Finland, with an estimated three million saunas for a population of 5.6 million; they play a big role in everyday life. Big companies and state institutions have their own saunas, the president has an official sauna and communal saunas can even be found in city apartment buildings.
Since my apartment building in Calgary, Alberta, does not have one, I had to go out and find a spa. So, I booked a session at Cedar & Steam, grabbed my swimsuit and went to check it out.
Basic sauna etiquette is quite simple. I was directed to shower before going into the sauna and to bring a towel to sit on. Once I came out of the sauna, I was to either take a cold shower or go into the steam room to dump a bucket of cold water on my head. The third step is rest. The spa offers a small bar with snacks and cold drinks to rest and rehydrate, and even recommends a massage. Afterwards, I would return to the sauna and repeat the process. In Finland, they might also jump in a lake or roll in the snow outside; I opted for the cold shower.
For me, stepping into a 70 C sauna felt aggressive. I was given cold drinks to enjoy while I sweated and supposedly relaxed in the extreme heat, so I started to sip my kombucha to take my mind off it. I was alone in the sauna and began to stare out the large windows at the city streets outside, watching the snow fall, as if I was looking into a giant snow globe. I was skeptical as to why people enjoyed this, but soon I began to feel myself relax, too. I found myself focusing on the beauty of winter rather than the dark and the cold. Soon, the temperature felt less overwhelming, and my perpetually cold fingers and toes began to warm up after the recommended 10 minutes. The ritual of the sauna is supposed to be about more than warming up in the cold weather; it’s a time to pause and relax.
The ritual also includes getting cold again right after for a quick 10-15 second thermal shock. I didn’t love this part, but I appreciate that people who cold plunge aren’t hiding from the cold; they invite the cold in. Despite my skepticism, the sauna definitely won me over. I might even work up the courage to try the ice bucket next time I come.
Cold air sleeping was another practice I had heard about. You may have seen videos or photos on social media of babies in Scandinavian countries, all bundled up, snoozing in their strollers outside restaurants. While some might think this looks crazy, cold air sleeping is science-backed and not just for babies. Research from the Sleep Research Society shows that our body temperature naturally dips as we prepare to sleep, and that nudging along the body’s tendency to cool down a bit before bed by lowering the temperature of your bedroom actually helps people sleep more soundly.
It’s common in Norway and other Scandinavian countries to leave the bedroom window open a crack to sleep in the winter. While my apartment complex doesn’t allow me to leave my window open all night when it’s below zero because pipes could freeze, I have started to open my window for an hour or so before I crawl under the covers to make my room extra cold. While I have had to add more blankets to my bed and wear warmer pyjamas, I have also been sleeping like a Norwegian baby left outside in a stroller—which I’m assuming is very good.
Spending deliberate time outdoors, no matter the temperature, is another practice of Scandinavians—especially during the colder months. They even have a special word for it—friluftsliv. A Norwegian expression invented by the famous Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen in the 1850’s, this term was used to describe the value of spending time in remote locations for spiritual and physical well-being. Despite the creation of this word in the 1850’s, the concept of being in nature for purely recreational purposes has been part of Norwegian culture for centuries.
Friluftsliv—or “open-air life”—is not just about staying active; it’s about de-stressing and taking time to realize you are part of something bigger than yourself. I have started getting into my warmest clothes and stepping out for daily walks while the sun is shining. I have made more time to go skiing or skating with my friends, despite the frigid temperatures. For me, friluftsliv has been about connecting with my younger self and doing all the things that brought her so much joy in the winter. The winter hasn’t felt as daunting this season as I’ve been learning to appreciate the cold again.
That’s what all of these practices are about: embracing nature as something we are deeply intertwined with. Scandinavians include the cold in their life; they welcome it, even inviting it into their homes. I think we should learn to do so in Canada as well.
I have found myself returning to that feeling of when I first crawled into that igloo, learning that the cold weather has a lot more to offer than I originally thought. These few, seemingly simple, routines have started to reignite that love for winter, teaching me that warmth can be found even while surrounded by snow.
