Organizers hope to bring people together for three days of steams and cold plunges, but also to celebrate a growing sauna culture in the region.
Vlad Borza owns Sleeping Bear Saunas. He and Nick Olsen, owner of Hearth Sauna, are planning the festival together. They both saw a booming sauna culture in northern Michigan and wanted to celebrate that with the community.
Borza said there will be 10 different saunas at the event — some from here in northern Michigan, others from across the state.
"Folks are coming in from the thumb; I've got a guy from Port Austin that's looking to make the drive and he's putting a piano in his sauna," Borza said. "He's a musician as well. So he wants to do a short set with a mini piano that he just found. It fits in his changing room. Everybody can bring their talents.”
That’s what Borza loves about sauna. It brings people together. His joy for steam started with trips to the Upper Peninsula with his friends.
He said Michigan is one of the early players in sauna culture in the U.S.
“A lot of the early settlers in the [Upper Peninsula] brought the culture with them. It's been slow to migrate south of the 'troll bridge,'” Borza said.
But it has caught on here. A quick Google search reveals plenty of options in the Traverse City area alone.
Before Borza came to northern Michigan, he lived in Grand Rapids. He taught ecology in public schools.
“I found an opportunity to take a year off from teaching, then COVID hit that year," he said. "It was hard to go back to that world and leave this especially. It’s been a couple years of settling in here. I still don’t know if I’d consider myself a local or a resident, but that’s fine.”
Now he describes his day job as cutting wood for the sauna. Borza didn’t start out planning to have a business, but his personal love for sauna caught the eye of people in the area.
“It’s a passion project, not a business for me at this stage and it'd be nice to grow with it," he said. "I enjoy hanging out and doing this either way. If there's others that enjoy it, let's do it together. Then if it grows to something beyond that, and we can foster a whole regional community around it — all the better.”
That goal of growing a community could start with Sauna Fest. Borza hopes it’s the first of many to come. The festival is Friday, February 28 and runs through that weekend.
The park will be open to all so anyone can hangout.
Find more information about Sauna Fest and get tickets here.
