Float, Sweat, and Chill: Canada’s Best Floating Saunas
Ease stress with contrast therapy at the latest wellness hot spot, the floating sauna.
Bota Bota, Montreal
Canadians’ growing passion for contrast therapy—alternating between hot- and cold-water immersion—seems almost ironic given we live through seasonal extremes. Yet a particular style of this self-care experience is emerging: the floating sauna.
Combining the subtle motion of a buoyant sauna that exposes the body to intense heat, followed by the shock of a cold water plunge with sensational views of the surrounding water and the soundtrack of lapping waves, is a tonic drawing regulars seeking the benefits of contrast therapy, including boosting serotonin and immunity and suppressing inflammation. These are some of the buzziest hot spots for getting your float, sweat, and chill on across Canada.
As a favourite cottage country destination for posh-taste types, including the Beckhams, it tracks that Muskoka now has a chic cedar sauna afloat in Gravenhurst’s Muskoka Wharf. Just steps from the wellness studio Muskoka Mind + Body is Floathaus, a modern, pod-like wood-fired sauna. Facing the blissfully quiet bay in the wintertime, sweat it out as you soak up views of the Muskoka steamships across the water. The bay is renowned for spectacular sunsets, so book your contrast therapy for dusk (either a social sauna with other guests or a private booking for you and seven others). Once you’ve sweated out your demons, dip into the bay’s exhilaratingly cold water via a hole carved in the ice.
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Anchors away! As a sauna boat that motors through the sea, Sisu Swim Sauna brings you to Deep Cove, North Vancouver, where you may spot seals and orcas in the water or eagles soaring overhead. This little floating oasis comes from Deep Cove native Nathan Morris, who found that his at-home sauna, with a view of a cedar wall, followed by a 100-metre walk to the sea, just wasn’t cutting it. “Why not put this with the best possible view in Vancouver?” he thought and brought his floating sauna to fruition at the end of 2023. Sisu is a bareboat charter, meaning you rent the Sisu propane-fuelled sauna boat and hire a boat captain, for a private experience with up to 11 people. Quality time with friends sweating paired with leaping off the sauna rooftop into the cold, salty sea is the new cocktail hour. And Vancouverites can now also get their floating hot/cold fix in downtown Vancouver, where Morris has launched his second sauna boat, High Tide, which takes you from False Creek to English Bay. For both chartered sauna boats, it’s BYOT (bring your own towel), and you’re welcome to pack a cooler of snacks and beverages as well.
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With the city’s iconic skyline featuring CN Tower and Rogers Centre as a backdrop to the north, floating sauna Löyly Toronto has dropped anchor at the Toronto Harbourfront. The streamlined space atop a barge features an electric-heated sauna with an expansive window delivering views of the Toronto Islands and HTO Park that you can enjoy seated on one of the two levels of the cedar sauna. Just outside, a petite plunge pool filled with water—chilled in winter by the ambient outdoor temperature, with Coldture chillers cooling on warmer days—provides that contrasting cold relief. To escape from the concrete jungle, bring your own towel (or purchase one on site) and be prepared to leave feeling renewed and resilient.
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Just when you think Tofino couldn’t get more stunning, you find yourself in a blissfully quiet spot in Clayoquot Sound aboard Tofino Resort & Marina’s remote floating sauna and dock. With breathtaking views of the coast, you’re totally off grid here for about four hours, depending on the season, with only sea otters and harbour seals as company (if you’re lucky, orcas and harbour porpoises may join the party, too). Work up a sweat with a stint in the wood-fired sauna, then drop from a rope swing into the crisp, salty sea. And because contrast therapy, not to mention paddleboarding and kayaking (which are available at the dock), works up an appetite, be sure to order the boxed picnic lunch with your reservation (you may want to lean into the ocean vibes with an order of seacuterie). Bonus: During the 30-minute boat ride from the marina to the floating sauna, put your fishing skills to work when you get the chance to pull the resort’s prawn trap (if you pull an ample catch, your captain will roast these delicious treasures from the sea for you).
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At 15 years old, Montreal’s Bota Bota is a pioneer of the floating sauna scene in Canada. A full-service spa, moored at the Old Port in the St. Lawrence River, Bota Bota has always offered a sauna as one of its amenities, along with treatments ranging from massages to wraps, but it has expanded this winter. Now a second boat will be anchored perpendicular to the original vessel can be accessed via a walk through a garden space. In the new ship designed by Sid Lee Architecture, guests can look forward to not only aufguss ceremonies in a large wood-fired cedar sauna, which faces the river and the striking lines of the Habitat 67 apartment complex, but also six cold plunge baths. While the original ship will remain a quiet space for a serene spa environment, the second boat will be more of a social one, where you can chat and connect over the European sauna rituals.
