Your home sauna is the kitchen; the public sauna is the restaurant

Guest post by Becky Pelkonen

Not long ago, after one of our community sessions, someone came up to me with that “I hope you won’t be mad” tone and said, almost apologetically: 

“I probably won’t be coming anymore. My brother-in-law is building us a backyard sauna.”

They meant it kindly. They even looked a little guilty, like they were breaking up with me. A soft, polite Canadian breakup.

I smiled and congratulated them, because honestly I am thrilled every time someone builds their own sauna. That’s literally the work my husband and I (and a growing circle of sauna co-conspirators) do here in North America. But the comment stuck with me, not because it was wrong, but because it revealed a very North American way of thinking:

Treating sauna as a replacement, instead of a deepening of relationship(s).

Being married into a Finnish family, I caught myself smiling as it was another moment for the growing folder I mentally label “cute cultural confusion.” Because let’s be honest: no one stops going to restaurants just because they have a stove at home.

In Finland, and in most places with deep sauna roots, sauna is not something you graduate out of once you have your own. Nor is it an upgrade on the wellness ladder or proof you have your life together. It is simply a mundane but essential rhythm in life:

You sauna at home.

You sauna at the mökki (cottage).

You sauna after sports.

You sauna with neighbours.

You sauna with strangers in public saunas.

You sauna alone.

You sauna together.

You sauna. 

We sauna.

Nobody asks which is better and nobody treats one setting as the replacement for the others.

A home sauna is basically your Tuesday-night dinner, simple, familiar and grounding, and a community sauna is like going out to eat, slower, more social and shaped by whoever happens to join you.

Both nourish you, just differently.

Why sauna culture wants more than one setting

When I tried to explain the whole encounter to my husband, the clearest comparison that came to mind was food. Restaurants are one of the easiest “third spaces” for people to grasp, and having a kitchen does not mean you stop eating with other people.

Cooking at home is a way of sharpening our skills, caring for our loved ones, and building a routine, whereas restaurants are where culture, creativity, and the shared experiences that create collective meaning actually happen.

I said: “Imagine telling a restaurant owner, ‘Thanks for the pad thai, but I will not be back. I bought groceries” (cost-of-living issues aside, of course). It sounds a little silly. And yet this is exactly how sauna often gets talked about in emerging sauna cultures, as if once you have your own, you no longer need to share a table with others.

In Finland, people with home saunas often use public and community saunas more, not less. They understand that each setting offers a different atmosphere, a different pace and a different “kind” of nourishment. And a healthy sauna culture needs all of it.

Sauna culture, like food culture, seems to thrive through variety, not one perfect setup.

What community sauna culture provides

Community sauna is not just a bigger and potentially hotter version of your backyard sauna, as it plays a distinct role in the wider wellbeing ecosystem:

• It lowers barriers as no land, no build, no technical knowledge is required. 
• It teaches. New users learn pacing, heating/cooling, etiquette, and how to listen to their bodies.
• It creates neutral ground where the right sauna spaces allow people to gather without roles, pressure or expectations attached.
• They sustain rituals by making them part of our continued lived experience (rather than explained from afar by your favorite Instagram influencer).

Most importantly, it supports relational wellbeing.

Relational wellbeing is what many people now call “community care,” and it reflects a worldview I have learned from First Nations mentors and from my own sauna teacher: we are only as healthy as each other. Take care of each other, take care of the land, and we take care of ourselves. It is a circular, reciprocal way of living.

This type of wellbeing is something I have studied, practiced, experimented with, and stumbled my way through in different stages of my own life. Wellbeing rarely comes from perfecting yourself or “levelling up.” I have felt it, and heard others describe it, through the ways we care for each other, the way we serve our communities, the shared things we tend together (children, gardens, art, and so on) and the practices we feel we genuinely belong to.

Community sauna makes space for all of that. It invites slowness in a world that keeps pushing us to go faster. It lets conversation arrive naturally, or sometimes not at all, and it is one of the only spaces where I can sink into presence instead of productivity.

A backyard sauna is a gift, not a goodbye!

Here in Canada when I’ve witnessed a friend build a backyard sauna, something beautiful starts to happen. The sauna experience becomes part of their daily rhythm. It gets absorbed into life.

And when we hold community sessions through Kamu Sauna, we notice the same pattern again and again. People who sauna more at home often arrive at community sauna more grounded, more confident and, honestly, more curious. It helps us learn from each other. They show up already understanding that sauna is all about the process. And as I have caught myself saying more and more in my 40’s (yes, cringingly): “Trust the process, man.”

Seeing private sauna as a replacement for community sauna is not how sauna is traditionally understood. It is just the version that seems to get sold in North America.

The table is bigger than our own kitchens

I have learned so much about sauna by watching people return to it again and again. Some come straight from their backyard saunas, some arrive nervously for the first time, some treat it like a celebration, and, increasingly, others are beginning to treat it like a Tuesday-night meal with family. And each time, it reminds me of food (what can I say, I love food as much as I now love sauna).

So, let’s agree that cooking at home isn’t a replacement for eating together. Both nourish us and both build culture. And culture matters because it is what keeps communities strong, connected and able to care for one another. Sauna works the same way.

And please, build your sauna! We can even help. Use it often, let it steady you and soften the edges of your sharp days. (And I hope to get an invite one day.)

And then come join us in community sauna. Come sit at the longer table and add your presence to the culture we are shaping together.

Sauna, like food, is not always meant to be a solo practice. Some things simply warm us more when we are sitting beside someone else.

Becky Pelkonen is the co-founder of Kamu Sauna in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia and a scholar-practitioner working at the intersection of third spaces and sustainable development.