West Coast Sauna Summit 2026: Returning to the Sources

The West Coast Sauna Summit gathers builders, cultural stewards, researchers, and sauna practitioners from across North America for a weekend of deep listening, shared learning, and embodied experience. This year's Summit invited a shared inquiry into the future of sauna culture and the responsibility of tending it with care and intention.

Rather than offering a full schedule recap of the Summit held at the UBC's Malcolm Knapp Research Forest over January 15-18, 2026 this year, we want to honor the deeper currents that ran through the Summit: belonging, lineage, sustainable practice, and the responsibility of holding bathing culture as living heritage not just a "bums on seats" business or shallow wellness trend.
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We especially loved Courtney Wittich’s thoughtful, real-time reporting through the S.P.A. Substack, which is capturing the tone, questions, and spirit of the weekend beautifully. If you want a session-by-session lens on the Summit, we highly recommend following her work here: https://substack.com/@spaaaaaaaaah

One idea echoed throughout the sessions, saunas, and late-night conversations:

​“The idea is not to have the best sauna on the block but to get the block in the sauna.” -Mikkel Aaland

Sauna legends Mikkel Aaland and Glen Auerbach opened the Summit with a keynote.

Mikkel embodying the rituals he lives and breathes.

From "Wellness" to Belonging

A clear shift is happening in sauna and bathing culture conversations: away from performative wellness and toward spaces of genuine connection.

As Alan Jalasjaa shared:

“Moving forward, the most successful wellness destinations won’t sell health, they will offer belonging.” 

This reframing challenges sauna operators and builders to think beyond products and protocols and instead ask:

• Who is this space for?
• Who feels welcome here?
• What kinds of relationships are being built?
• What deep-rooted traditions am I honoring?

The Summit underscored that the future of sauna depends not on perfection, but on meaningful, care-focused (not extraction-focused) participation.

Deep Culture: Healing as Lineage, Not Lifestyle

Our own Becky Pelkonen led a panel exploring how our understanding of “healing” is shaped by the cultural lineages and worldviews we choose to honor.

Rather than treating sauna as an oversimplified wellness tool, the panel invited participants to see sauna as a cultural language; one that carries meaning through history, ritual, and relationship to place.

Key reflections included:

• Healing is not universal in form, but universal in intention.
• Bathing cultures speak different languages while carrying shared messages of health, community care, and belonging.
• When traditions are extracted or oversimplified, they lose their depth. When they are held with care, they open pathways to connection and shared meaning.

​This session asked North American sauna communities to evolve responsibly by grounding their practices in lineage, relationship to land, and community-defined approaches to healing that remain complex, contextual, and authentic.

Becky, Niamh + Jake Newport of Finnmark Sauna out of the UK.

Ionut of UBC Forestry + Loon Lake Retreat Center with Juho, enjoying 1 of the 11 saunas at the Summit.

Sauna as "Social Work"

Another powerful theme was the idea that reviving bathing culture is not merely about individual wellbeing; it is about collective care.

“Reviving bathing culture is social work and should be seen as such. It contributes to a common good.” -Azar Eskandarpour

We felt Azar "brought the house down" with her research and perspectives reframing sauna as social infrastructure and a methodology for resilience-building: a place where loneliness is eased, trust is rebuilt, and people experience care in the deepest senses. In this sense, sauna becomes less about escape and more about repair and building resilience over generations.

Azar with her talk on "Sauna + Resilience." Our favorite talk of the Summit.

Serving the Sauna First

Throughout the Summit, we were pleased to see humility emerging as a guiding principle.

“Serve the sauna first.” -Kaisu Järvelin

And alongside it, a reminder that authenticity requires limits:

“The ego and hubris of ‘wellness’ is the belief that we can do it all. Scope of practice and permission matters. Be authentic.” -Dave Gu

Not every sauna space needs to be or "do" everything. The most meaningful spaces understand their role, their lineage, and their responsibility.

Becky led a panel talk on "deep culture" with Dan + Anya of "Banya House" + Kaisu who is a Finnish sauna healer.

Sweetgrass, Cedarbark + Saunavihta honoring Indigenous Lands + both continental + global traditions.

Shared Roots + Responsible Practice

A central theme at the Summit was the relationship between culture, materials, and the intersection of responsibility. Conversations on sustainable forestry and design focused on the practical choices that shape authentic sauna experiences, from how wood is harvested to how supply chains are evaluated and firewood is sourced. One conversation captured it clearly:

“Procurement ethics matter. Think about how your wood is harvested. About how your stoves are made. Where your tents are constructed. We are breathing that in.”

Durability and craftsmanship were framed as very necessary and intentional acts of cultural and environmental care. Sauna simplicity and UNtrending were also discussed as the paths forward.

“Call me crazy, but I think we should build saunas that last.” -Juho Pelkonen

Many panelists, speakers + Summit-goers also reflected on what makes sauna spaces endure:

“The spaces that survive are those for the people. Those with a soul.”

And overall the Summit highlighted renewed respect for bathing cultures as plural and interconnected, with gratitude for the Finns for holding the thread of cultural knowledge tight over the generations:

“Finnish sauna is an incredible global cultural bathing strength. It has endured and supports other bathing traditions. It unifies communities.” -Mikkel Aaland

TelttaSaana in action at the West Coast Sauna Summit

Speakers emphasized learning from source traditions: Finnish, Slavic, Indigenous, and others, not to replicate them but to understand their meaning and context. While the soul of bathing culture is universal, it speaks in many dialects.

These ideas were embodied through shared sauna experiences, including sessions in our very own TelttaSaana, showing how various types + methods of sauna can still hold cultural integrity. We also introduced our new merch where we worked with local Fernie artist, Camille Pageau.

One of the clearest takeaways from the Summit was the call to reconnect sauna culture with its sources, the lands, peoples, and traditions that shaped it. Not as nostalgia, but as responsibility.

"If sauna can't fix it, nothing can fix it."

Sauna, at its best, is a practice of being together. A living tradition that reminds us that health is collective, not individual. The work ahead is to build communities strong enough to gather inside the heat so that everyone feels that coveted remembrance of belonging.

Panel speaker Alan Jalasjaa, Sauna From Finland Ambassador + Kivia Podcast on Global Wellness Trends + the North American Sauna Ecosystem.

Gratitude + Looking Ahead

We were honored to be part of the "Team Steam" group of incredible volunteers + are deeply grateful to the founders Val, Linda + Hadi, and to the speakers, builders, and participants who brought their knowledge, curiosity, and care into every conversation and every round of löyly. 

As sauna culture continues to expand across North America, the questions raised, + calls-to-actions posed, at this Summit will stay with us. How do we honor source traditions without simplifying them? How do we build with integrity and humility? How do we create spaces that welcome people into belonging rather than performance?
We feel the answers will unfold not come from a single model or method, but from relationships where we listen to each other and allow for both space + values to guide the path forward.

We look forward to continuing these conversations, inside the heat and far beyond it.