Vancouver Sauna Circuit + West Coast Sauna Summit | Valtteri Rantala | Sauna Talk #125
Sauna Talk
Today on the bench, we sit withValtteri Rantala, A Finn living in Vancouver BC since 2016. Val started a Sauna company in Vancouver in 2019. And in the shadows of Western Red Cedars, we'll hear the origin stories of the budding West Coast Sauna Summit at Loon Lake Lodge and Retreat center, one of the pins on Val's Vancouver Sauna Circuit. We just returned from the second West Coast Sauna Summit here in 2026. And I was able to attend last year's inaugural Summit in 2025. The Vibes at the West Coast Sauna Summit are quite familiar to me, as founder and lead contributor for...
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New York City’s First Sauna Village | Culture of Bathing Gathering | Sauna Talk #124
Sauna Talk
Welcome to this episode of Sauna Talk recorded on multiple sauna benches at the Culture of Bathing Sauna Village in New York City. I'll keep this introduction brief as we turn the microphone over to four pillars behind the second annual Culture of Bathing gathering. This year, the gathering was layered adjacent to the opening of New York Cities first sauna village. A village of 15 architecturally-distinct saunas set along the Williamsburg waterfront. Featuring: Mikkel Aaland: The Godfather of Sweat Cosmin-Nicolae Cîrîc: King of the Sauna Experience Robert Hammond: President and Chief...
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Mikkel Aaland: Sauna Aid, Sustainability & The Future of Bathing | Sauna Talk #123
Sauna Talk
Today’s episode comes to you from the recent West Coast Sauna Summit, outside Vancouver BC Canada, where I had the honour of interviewing Mikkel Aaland, the Godfather of Sweat, live in front of a packed room of thermal enthusiasts. It’s no secret that Mikkel has been a mentor to me, in sweat, in sauna, and in life. What I’ve always admired is his refusal to stay inside the box. Instead, he works the edges of it, where things are more interesting, more impactful, and where real change actually happens. In this conversation, we dig into three ideas that are front and center for him right...
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Sauna Ventilation Explained: The Lazy River & Deep Wave Heat with Keegan Kittock of Deep Wave Sauna | Sauna Talk #122
Sauna Talk
Today on the bench, we sit together with Keegan Kittock, co-founder of Deep Wave Sauna. With the rising tide of sauna also comes marketing talk, pedantic chatter, and graphs and charts about how air supposedly moves in the hot room. So it’s extra special and refreshing to visit with someone like Keegan. In this episode, we start at the beginning—picturing Keegan after elementary school, dragging a magnet around a building site, earning bubble-gum money working for his father’s contracting company. And like many of us, catching the sauna bug at a young, impressionable age up north at...
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Chicago Sauna Circuit: Banyas, Bathhouses & Lake Michigan Plunges | Sauna Talk #121
Sauna Talk
Today on the virtual bench we visit with longtime thermal enthusiast, friend, and SaunaTimes contributor Kev who takes us through the public bathhouses in and around Chicago for this Sauna Circuit. As you’ll hear in this episode, Kev is no stranger to the saunas, banyas, and bathhouses in his hometown. What’s cool about Chicago is that the banya culture is well developed.. and also quite historic thanks to aptly entitled Chicago Bathhouse, a traditional bathhouse at 1914 W. Division Street in the Wicker Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, which has operated since 1906. Formerly Red...
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American-Made Sauna Stoves: Inside the Top U.S. Manufacturers | Sauna Talk #120
Sauna Talk
Today, on Sauna Talk, and almost on the sauna bench, I’m pleased to bring you the folks behind the three major American sauna stove makers. American manufacturing at work! Garrett, , Tower, Minnesota, Population 421 Philip, , Beulah, MI, Population 303 Lynn,, Dollar Bay, Michigan, Population 1,070 We talk through what their company looks like, their community, and what their opinions are on the North American sauna industry. Small town manufacturing. Direct to consumer, factory direct. Products Made with quality with longevity in mind. A couple of terms: Cost...
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International Sauna Builders Roundtable | Live from Sauna Days 2025 | Sauna Talk #119
Sauna Talk
Today on the bench, we bring you to Larsmont Cottages, Two Harbors. Minnesota for a special roundtable discussion with four sauna builders from four different countries as part of Sauna Days 2025. Alex, Bsaunasusa, Belarus Keegan, Deep Wave Saunas, USA Jake, Finnmark, UK Andrew, Sauna Builder, Canada The weather was wonderful, the heat was resonating, and our conversation went deep.
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Sauna, Science & Spiritual Health | Emory University Researchers on the Bench | Sauna Talk #118
Sauna Talk
Today on Sauna Talk, we are joined by the dynamic duo of researcher from Emery University, Deanna Kaplan and Roman Palitsky. Deanna Kaplan Deanna Kaplan, PhD is a clinical psychologist with expertise in digital health technologies. She has more than a decade of experience using wearable and smartphone-based technologies to study the dynamics of health processes and clinical change during daily life. Her research is grounded in a whole-person (bio-psycho-social-spiritual) model of health, and much of her work focuses on investigating the dynamics of change of integrative interventions, such as...
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From Finland to Minnesota: Building a Backyard Sauna with Chris Heck | Sauna Talk #118
Sauna Talk
I’ve had the pleasure of sitting on the sauna bench with well over a hundred guests for Sauna Talk. Whether you’re listening in your car, out for a walk, or sweating it out on your own bench, my goal as host is to help keep the conversation flowing. Like good löyly, Sauna Talk rises, rolls, and wraps around us—natural, unforced, and alive. That same spirit was there last night with Chris Heck. Chris grew up in Northern Minnesota, made his way into engineering school, and deep into his electrical engineering career. He spent a couple years living in Finland—where sauna...
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Sauna Talk #116: Jerome, European Aufguss Professional
Sauna Talk
Welcome to this episode of Sauna Talk, where we head back to , resort spa and wellness retreat South of Oslo, Norway. We get to sit with Jerome, who is a long standing steam master at the resort. Here he leads aufguss ceremony and assists two time Sauna Talk guest . 10,000 hours One thing I wish I had asked Jerome in this interview is to venture a guess at how many guests he’s “entertained” (if that’s the right word) over his 10-plus years leading aufguss sessions at this world-renowned facility. Some quick farmer’s math gets us close: a few sessions a day, five days a...
info_outlineAs we look back upon Sauna Days 2024, walking from one sauna to the next, pretty much all of us were comfortably numb.
About 200 guest converged for the fourth Sauna Days event at Larsmont Cottages, North of Duluth, Minnesota, this past weekend. Some came from near, and many came from far. All were able to enjoy the multitude of saunas, speakers, nature, and locally crafted food, beverages, and live entertainment.\
The recipe for a comfortably numb sauna gathering is much like a basic chocolate chip cookie recipe. We don’t need too many ingredients to make something scrumptious.
The foundation for Sauna Days 2024 was 12 mobile saunas and one lämpömassa enriched brick and mortar sauna. Then, sprinkle in various food tents, strategically located hydration stations. Add a pinch of LMNT hydration packets (flavors of choice) and a curation of interesting speakers. Finally, as icing on the cake, infinity cold plunge access into the world’s largest freshwater lake.
Familiar faces
A good number of the 200 plus Sauna Days 2024 attendees were repeat vendors and offenders. Familiar faces helped foster countless spontaneous re-connections either on the bench, by one of fire pits, at the bar, on the rocks, or in the lake. “So great to see you again!” And they meant it. “Is this your second or third Sauna Days?”
The spontaneous gatherings were akin to traveling from stage to stage at an outdoor music festival. Then, bumping into familar faces from year’s past. And, like attending a music festival with great bands and few yahoos, at Sauna Days, everyone knew the lyrics. Songs include: keep sandals outside the saunas, help fill up the löyly buckets, ask who is ready for steam before throwing water on the rocks, and by all means, close the sauna door.
Far and wide
As sauna becomes more popular, Sauna Days continues to draw people from places beyond the Great Lakes sauna belt region. I found myself on the bench with a couple who came all the way from the Yukon Territory. Other Canadians included Kyle Wilson, Homecraft Saunas, and his wife from Vancouver BC. We had guests from Salt Lake City, Oregon, Northern and Southern California, Florida. And yet none of these participants received the Furthest Traveled Award. That accolade was awarded to Jake Newport from Finnmark saunas. A close second went to Mika & Wendy from the British Sauna Society. The three represented the UK well, proucly wearing their signature British Blue robes as sauna uniforms.
Speaker’s corner
The Brits added some great flavor to the Sauna Days speaker series. Jake Newport shared a slide of a map of Great Britain, showing 100 dots around the British coastline, representing the number of mobile sauna activations there. “Pretty much every beach around the coastline now has a public sauna.” We breathed along with Nick Fox, Learned about Sauna and Sobriety, gleaned insight into the future and scale of Therme Group’s wellbeing oasis’s (bigger than Yankee Stadium!) with President Robbie Hammond.
The Steam Masters
Many were quietly sharing that a highlight experience for Sauna Days 2024 was getting wacked around by one of the three Steam Masters. The three administered venik treatments in either the Steam Lodge or Deep Wave Sauna’s Black Night sauna. We were blessed to have three steam masters lead rounds of venik treatments. Dan from The Banya House, California Alex, and B Alex from BSaunas in Buffalo, NY.
In addition to Sauna Days being the first weekend of May, the Steam Masters introduced us to a sister event first weekend of October: Banya Fest at a stately church camp just outside Minneapolis/St. Paul. A highlight of the weekend was learning more about the ancient practice of Eastern European banya and venik treatments, documented as a Sauna Days presentation and a soon to be released Sauna Talk podcast.
Sauna in nature
As wonderful as it was to experience multiple saunas scattered throughout the grounds at Larsmont Cottages, once again, nature seems to provide us with the best amenity. Larsmont Cottages is set along the shores of Lake Superior. Sauna Days guests were treated to rosy red skyline sunsets, night skies bursting with stars, and even a Hawaii-esque rainbow, as we celebrated a passing shower in the later afternoon sun.
Northern Minnesota sauna is always enjoyed in nature. Sauna in nature is bigger than all of us. And no bigger than within Sauna Days 2024 at Larsmont Cottages, Two Harbors, Minnesota.