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Waves of Superior Spa
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Massage can come in many forms, like the hot stone massage where warmed stones, strategically placed, help to prepare muscles before a deep-tissue massage. Waves of Superior Spa in Tofte, Minnesota, takes advantage of its Lake Superior setting to help the relaxation process. Roxanne Kinderman, spa manager, says the spa encourages clients to come half an hour before their sessions and to stay afterwards to sip tea or other beverages and relax. “It’s a beautiful environment to work in; everybody who’s here wants to be here,” Roxanne says. “We’re just a natural extension of what’s outside.”
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Dance of the Sun Day Spa
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A calming atmosphere sets the scene for a relaxing massage at Dance of the Sun Day Spa in Marquette.
Stress has been linked to health problems from cancers to depression to gum disease and just about every other ailment.
According to a study by Jerome F. Kiffer in Health Psychology and Applied Psychophysiology at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Ohio:
- 43 percent of adults suffer adverse health effects from stress.
- 74 percent to 90 percent of all doctor’s office visits are for stress-related ailments and complaints.
- Stress can play a role in high blood pressure, headaches, heart problems, diabetes, skin conditions, asthma, arthritis, depression and anxiety … to name just a few.
Regular stress relief benefits body and spirit. While daily options abound – quiet meditation, exercise, listening to music, journaling or others – the Lake Superior region also abounds with places for a spa “getaway” of an hour or a few days.
Many Lake Superior towns offer day spas. The Waves of Superior Spa in Tofte, Minnesota, is set up as a destination spa, a place that people choose as part of their vacation or getaway. It’s at Surfside on Lake Superior.
“People leave here with pep in their step, their face is alive,” says Roxanne Kinderman, massage therapist and spa manager at Waves of Superior. “They say, ‘I feel lighter,’ and I tell them, ‘Now you know what stress feels like. It’s a weight.’”
Spas offer various services: massages, facials and other skin care, pedicures, manicures and, sometimes, even hair care. Some combine treatments with aromatherapy. Places like the Christal Center in Duluth offer a range of additional wellness options like acupuncture and energy balance practices such as reiki.
Massages can be muscle specific (deep tissue) to full body. Some are for relaxation and some for specific overuse of muscles on hikes or long snowmobile trail rides, for example.
At Dance of the Sun Day Spa in Marquette, owner and massage therapist Dawn Cremeans says that her clients might get a massage for recovery from sports injuries or as relaxation for those in the latter months of pregnancy or handling chemotherapy for cancer. Many come for fun, getting a pedicure and manicure with a massage, and, more and more, they bring a friend.
“One of the things that have become really, really common is that people are celebrating small events or big events and they want to do it with people who matter to them,” Dawn says. Bridal parties, mother-daughter outings and even office mates might schedule group sessions.
Dennis Rysdahl, an owner of the Bluefin Bay family of resorts that includes Waves of Superior Spa, says that adding a full destination spa was a good business move.
The spa fits nicely with the group’s expanded meeting and event spaces and becomes an integral part of annual events like the “Girls Gone North” weekend in November with speakers and workshops for business women or the “Fitness North Bootcamp” two-week retreat to develop healthier eating and exercise habits.
He even admits to trying a facial followed by neck, head, shoulder and foot massages when the spa first opened. “I’ve been back two more times,” he says, then jokes, “though I don’t know if I want my buddies knowing that.”
“We’re a little bit old-fashioned in the Midwest; we’re shy,” says Roxanne, who provides a page on what to expect for first-time spa goers. “When you let them know what it is and how to go about it, their confidence rises.”
Roxanne, like Dawn, says the women who come together can be the most fun. “They giggle and they laugh and they share memories.”
Now that sounds a lot like stress melting away.
Editor's Update, March 2014: The current manager at the Waves of Superior Spa is Mary Kate Weyrens.