Join us on January 20 for a talk with Finlandia Foundation’s Lecturer of the Year Eero Kilpi on advancing sauna culture and Finnish tradition in North America and beyond!

Kilpi’s lecture, “Sauna Lost in Translation: Restoring Finnishness to a Global Tradition,” traces the evolution of global sweat bathing cultures—from Lakota sweat lodges to early Nordic sauna—and examines how Finnish traditions can reclaim their central role in today’s rapidly expanding sauna movement.

Drawing on two decades of work with the North American Sauna Society, Eero unpacks what happened when the ancient Finnish practice arrived in North America and morphed into what he calls the “hotbox phenomenon.” He explains how a wellness trend focused on heat, hardware, and health fads often stripped sauna of its spirit, ritual, and deeper mental-emotional benefits.

With humor, clarity, and lived experience as a Finn who has spent more than half his life in North America, Eero offers “hot takes” on where sauna culture went astray—and how returning to traditional principles can restore its meaning. He argues that when we root the practice in its cultural and spiritual foundations, everyone can experience the most authentic and profoundly restorative sauna possible.

Register