Our story
It started at the lake.
My papa built a wood-fired sauna at the lake. Winters, we rolled in the snow. Summers, we jumped off the dock.
My grandparents were Finnish and Swedish, so the sauna was never a luxury in our family. It was where we warmed up, slowed down and talked about the hard stuff. Some of my favourite memories are in that little wooden room.
Hockey took me to Europe for several years, playing in Norway, Poland and Germany. Prague gave me my first taste of real sauna culture. In Germany, the H2O baths near where I lived had dozens of saunas and full Aufguss shows, and I was hooked all over again.
Full disclosure: I bought this sauna for me. Then it felt wrong to keep it to myself. So we share, nicely. You book your sessions, I take the rest, and nobody has to see me in a towel.
The Nordic countries sit at the top of the world happiness rankings year after year. A lot of that, I think, lives in small rituals: a coffee you actually stop for, heat and cold, time together. Nordic Escape is my way of bringing a little of that home to Calgary.
Ryley · Your host
