What happens when the conversations that begin at a conference continue long after people return home?
That is what unfolded between Becky and Juho Pelkonen of Kamu Sauna and Jason Wong of Kotisauna, who first connected through the Sauna from Finland World Sauna Forum and discovered they had arrived at many of the same questions independently. Not only about sauna itself, but about what kinds of spaces people increasingly seem to be searching for in modern public life.
What began as dialogue around authenticity and cultural stewardship has since evolved into a cross-country collaboration exploring how sauna might function as something more than a private wellness experience. In Canada, where public gathering spaces continue to disappear or become increasingly commercialized, the work has taken on broader relevance.
From small mountain communities in British Columbia to the centre of Toronto, the partnership between Kamu Sauna and Kotisauna is helping shape new approaches to community sauna rooted in cultural integrity and a growing belief that spaces centered on accessibility, care, and shared experience are no longer a luxury, but a necessity.
A Shared Vision for Community Sauna
At the World Sauna Forum in 2025, a connection formed between Kamu Sauna and Kotisauna, two socially minded enterprises working toward a distinctly public, community-oriented approach to sauna culture.
Both organizations share a belief that sauna is more than a wellness product or commercial offering. It can also function as social infrastructure: a place for gathering, restoration, and belonging.
Led by Becky and Juho Pelkonen, Kamu Sauna has developed a framework and social investment prospectus for community-based sauna that brings together cultural stewardship, experience design, and regional development. Through pilot activations in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia and collaborations across Canada, their work explores how sauna culture can be adapted within new contexts while remaining grounded in the values that make the practice meaningful. Supported by Destination Canada, the work is advancing toward scalable approaches for municipalities, sauna operators, and social investors focused on wellbeing, tourism, and rural economic development.
In Toronto, Jason Wong has been advancing similar ideas through grassroots urban sauna initiatives. What began as a mobile sauna project has evolved into a broader effort to create accessible, community-driven sauna experiences within Canadian cities.
That work is now taking shape through a major public-facing initiative led by Kotisauna at Evergreen Brick Works in Toronto, where sauna is being explored as an accessible, public gathering space integrated into community life.
A Meeting Grounded in Culture
When Kamu Sauna and Kotisauna first connected in Finland, the relationship emerged through a shared understanding that cultural grounding must remain central to sauna’s international growth.
As Becky Pelkonen noted during her opening address as co-host at last year’s World Sauna Forum: “Even the strongest sauna initiatives cannot sustain without connection to the cultural foundations of the practice itself.”
Without care, reciprocity, and cultural understanding, sauna risks losing the traditions and social values that give the experience meaning. Those traditions and values can be transported and adapted around the world however that meaning, in turn, is what creates continuity. When it is present, people return and build community around the practice built on a strong foundation. When it is absent, the experience becomes easier to replicate, commercialize, and abandon.
For both organizations, cultural grounding is not separate from sustainability – it is a condition for it.
This perspective resonated across the collaboration. Jason Wong had been building Kotisauna from the grassroots level in Toronto, while Becky and Juho Pelkonen were developing Kamu Sauna through community experiences, consulting, and place-based collaborations rooted in Finnish sauna culture and contemporary public life.
Through early activations in the Kootenays, a shared realization emerged: the challenge is not simply how to grow sauna culture internationally, but how to do so without losing the relational qualities that make the practice meaningful in the first place.
Building Sauna Into Public Life With Sauna From Finland Members
That collaboration has also taken tangible form with 3 Sauna From Finland members. Kamu Sauna supported the Kotisauna initiative through the design and build of a sauna completed in Western Canada and transported to Toronto. At its centre is an electric stove sponsored by Homecraft Saunas, also a member, positioned intentionally within the space to support both performance and shared experience.
The project reflects a broader shift taking place across parts of the global sauna movement – one increasingly interested not only in how sauna looks, but in what sauna does. How it shapes relationships, supports belonging, and creates opportunities for people to gather in ways that feel increasingly rare in contemporary public life.
This year, Becky Pelkonen and Jason Wong will return to the World Sauna Forum together to participate in a panel discussion and lead the workshop Global Action for Community Sauna alongside Community Sauna Baths and Community Sauna Network. The session will explore how community-oriented sauna models are emerging internationally and how organizations across countries can collaborate around accessibility, public life, and cultural stewardship.
From International Exchange to Local Action
The story of Kamu Sauna and Kotisauna reflects one example of what can happen when international exchange leads to long-term collaboration and local action.
The World Sauna Forum is not only a place for networking or business development. It is also a meeting ground for people working to carry sauna culture forward in thoughtful and responsible ways across different parts of the world.
For some participants, the conversations begin at the forum.
For others, that is where the real work starts.
