Taking on the waves of the lakes in upper Minnesota is what’s known as the sauntoon.

The sauntoon is exactly what it sounds like, a pontoon boat with a sauna right on top of it! You can sweat it out in the sauna portion and then take a cold plunge into the lake.

Owner Kraig Anderson says the inspiration came from Norway. “The whole idea came about when our son was studying in Oslo, Norway. My wife and I were fortunate enough to be able to go and see him, visit for a week,” he says, “and when we got there, they had santoons.”

“It was literally the most amazing thing I’ve ever done, with a cold plunge into the Norwegian fjords out of that super hot sauna. So we had to bring that back to Minnesota.”

Kraig’s sauntoon was finished about three months ago and feeling better ever since.

“It just changes the way your body feels,” says Kraig, “It gets rid of a lot of different things, toxins, et cetera. But you have to try it to understand it. After the first one, the second one’s even better. The third one, you’ll never not do it again.”

Kraig says he’s working on getting his sauntoon ready to be rented out to resorts in the Lake Vermillion area, but as of right now it is not open to the public just yet.

“We’ve just been kind of trying to get a feel for it, see what people are interested in. We’ve been working a lot too on just different cosmetic issues, also like stability, you know, with railing and everything. But we’re trying different ideas.”