Vancouver considering a floating sauna in Kitsilano — but not everyone wants to get on board

Duane Elverum looks around Kitsilano’s Heritage Harbour — a quiet marina in the heart of the city for around 15 small boats that are still in use, including his 1960 ship Querencia — and a popular phrase comes to mind.

“This is an absolute hidden gem,” he said. 

That hiddenness could soon come to an end. Over the last two weeks, Vancouver conducted its first round of public feedback for a proposed rezoning of the harbour that would allow for a sauna on a large floating barge. 

It would be owned by HAVN, which has operated the same business in Victoria’s harbour for three years. Some of the profits would go back to the adjacent Vancouver Maritime Museum, which manages the harbour.

“We really are a waterfront city — it's part of our DNA — and we want the chance to have this sort of wellness experience right here in our own backyard,” said Vancouver Coun. Sarah Kirby-Yung, who brought forward the motion last year to expedite the plan after HAVN pulled out of a similar plan at the Plaza of Nations.

“I just thought it would be a real shame that they might go to another city or go to the North Shore.”

But the people who moor their boats in Heritage Harbour have a different perspective.

Elverum, who represents the tenants of Heritage Harbour, outlines a litany of concerns with the proposal, from its size (around 45 metres in length and 10 metres high) to the lack of environmental studies, to worries about what could happen to other boats in the harbour if the barge was unmoored in a windstorm. 

But fundamentally, he argues it’s the wrong fit, and only being proposed to meet the financial needs of the museum, which he argues should be properly funded. 

“I'm Norwegian, I believe in the health benefits of saunas and cold plunging very deeply. But this solution here is not about health and it's not about revitalization,” he said. 

“To have one of the most beautiful settings in the world essentially, and then putting a steel wall in front of it, it strikes me as one of the most curious decisions I think I've heard in maybe my lifetime, both as an architect and as a sailor.”

Elvira Lount, a Kitsilano resident who has led many campaigns against commercializing waterfront land in the area, has organized a petition against the project with more than 1,000 signatures. 

“People like the idea of the barge. I have a friend who just called me and said, ‘Oh, I love the Victoria barge. I would be happy.’ But I said think about it, just use your common sense. This is not the place for it,” she said. 

“Beaches are for ocean swimming. That's a healthy city strategy. Take away that to put people in hot tubs on a barge instead? That makes no sense.”