Some Like It Hot
Victoria’s Wellness Industry Gathers Steam With HAVN and Wildwood Saunas
woRds by eMily pollock // iMages by daniel muRphy + wildwood sAunas
“Saunas are so hot right now,” laughs Nick Van Buren, CEO and designer of the new HAVN Nordic spa in the Inner Harbour. Puns aside, he’s right: local entrepreneurs have recently zeroed in on the niche, offering guests a means of stress relief and a healthy socializing alternative to the classic “drinks with friends.”
The tradition of sauna use, a form of “sweat bathing,” remains an important part of the culture of Finland, where it was invented over 2000 years ago. The principle of this practice is to sit in a heated room for ten minutes or so, depending on your tolerance, followed by submersion in ice water or a cold shower.
In combination with the cold cycle, practitioners claim it helps improve quality of life, sleep, and mood. Finnish studies found that the practice can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, fatigue, respiratory disease, and inflammation. A surge in vitality is a documented benefit of the hot to cold transition, along with a rush of endorphins and stress relief. Some bathers report a full-body tingle resulting from the increased circulation.
Three years ago, Josh Dupuis, founder of Victoria’s Wildwood Saunas, wanted to rent a private sauna and couldn’t find one, so he built his own. “It was for friends at first, and they really enjoyed it, so we kept going from there,” he says.
Once Dupuis had his own sauna, he knew he needed to share it. He originally operated at Willow’s beach for ten months, but was asked to pack up when the City of Oak Bay realized that the sauna was a business. Thanks to the mobile nature of his model, it was able to easily relocate. The next spot he tried was the Esquimalt Lagoon, which was quickly vetoed by the Colwood council, who were concerned about the impact on the lagoon as a bird sanctuary. Thankfully, the City of Colwood offered a six-month contract at a new location down the road at Royal Beach.
The company now has multiple units for rent, all made from local Western red cedar. Each has room for 6 to 8 guests and is heated by a wood-burning stove.
For a communal sweat-bathing experience, their community sauna is open at Royal Beach in Colwood on Thursday to Sunday from 2:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., or you can rent one of their mobile saunas for your next event. They’re also adding cold-plunge tubs to the experience (picture a pool about the size of a hot tub, but without the jets), so you can enjoy the benefits of both the heat and the cold.
The Wildwood website describes their benefits this way: “The heat from the sauna relaxes the body’s muscles and allows blood to flow more freely. The blood vessels dilate, which helps improve blood circulation. It also encourages the release of endorphins, which not only make you feel good but help the muscles deal with pain.”
“I found a passion for it because of the health benefits, just trying to get as many people to be able to have something that’s affordable and good for their brain and body,” says Dupuis.
In May of 2023, an enormous matte-grey and black barge materialized on the Inner Harbour, topped with flowing cedar privacy fencing and lush greenery. Originally built in 1943 as a floating workshop for welders and other tradesmen, HAVN sauna opened to the public on June 1, advertising “lush green spaces, cold pools, hot tubs, and hand-built saunas.”
With a desire “to give people fleeting moments of being completely present in an effort-free way,” Van Buren initially turned a 30-foot sailboat into a sauna. People loved it, but he kept asking, “How can we bring this to more people?” Van Buren’s personal ethos, and the motivation behind HAVN, is “to design and create spaces and environments that captivate people in the present moment, making them more aware of their surroundings.”
There’s more to the vision than bold design, though. Van Buren and his team wanted to set up shop as close to downtown Victoria as possible, to keep the business accessible: “It would have been easier to tie up in Sooke or Port McNeill or some bay in a remote area, but we wanted to be in an urban core to be conveniently integrated into everyone’s daily life.”
“Everyone’s glued to their phones, to something that’s already happened or something that’s going to happen, and I think part of the reason we’re seeing a sauna revolution is because people are feeling more and more disconnected—not only from each other but from themselves, from spending less time being present.”
At its core, HAVN “is a design and an art installation project that’s using a Nordic thermal spa business model to create profitability.” It was intentional from the outset to include landscaping and green space to break up the uniformity of Victoria’s concrete waterfront.
HAVN is pronounced with a long “a” sound, and translates to “harbour” or “port” in Norwegian and Danish. There are three dry saunas on board, which, unlike steam rooms, operate without humidity. These are set at three different temperatures, so you can choose your intensity. Indoor and outdoor cold showers, an ambient pool (neither heated nor cooled), and multiple hot tubs are surrounded by reclaimed driftwood detailing, lounge spaces, and a 360 degree view of the harbour.
Whatever your intention in visiting these spaces, be it spending time with friends, feeling invigorated, or simply enjoying the beauty of nature outside the sauna doors at HAVN or Wildwood, there’s a good chance that your curiosity will be satisfied, and you’ll leave feeling healthier and more connected to nature, and possibly to yourself.
