12/24/2023 0 Comments Victoria sanders teletext holidays![]() Wepsela founded the Hastings Steam Bath at 766 East Hastings in 1926, the area was the heart of the city, known as the Great White Way. Several homeless people amble out front, seeking shelter from the rain under unoccupied awnings, and the storefront itself is easy to miss, looking more like that cheap hostel on the last leg of your Eurotrip than a sauna. It's far enough from the infamous Main and Hastings intersection for outsiders to venture to it, but it's not far enough to escape the local aesthetic. The unassuming "Finnish-style" sauna is hidden among dead hotels and unspecific storefronts. I sifted through the Vancouver Public Library newspaper archives, interviewed the business manager, and went in for a way-too-hot public steam to meet the regulars and uncover nine decades of Hastings Steam & Sauna history. Looking into the history of the steambath, there was almost no public information readily available. Despite being one of the longest running businesses in Vancouver, it remains a hidden, albeit sordid, gem. It's the kind of place your weird dad would bring you on your 13th birthday, because nothing says rite of passage like sweating in a room full of naked dudes. The Hastings Steam & Sauna is now time-worn and well past its prime, but it stays committed to its nine-decade promise of stress-relief and detox health benefits. Yet just five blocks from Vancouver's skid row is the Hastings Steam & Sauna, sitting in the same place it's been for 90 years. It's not a place most people consider when looking to chill out for a few hours. There's something almost apocalyptic about the Downtown Eastside, which has become the Canadian poster child for urban decay and given rise to much controversy in recent years. When someone mentions "East Hastings" to a non-Vancouverite, it usually brings to mind drug dealing, the notorious junk market, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. It's an aesthetic that's oddly fitting, considering the sauna finds itself down the street from sketchiest corner on the East Hastings strip. Outside the sauna, the showers are dingy, poorly lit, and the tiles are falling off the walls. I get up and leave, listening to his laugh being swallowed by the steam. I feel no sense of emasculation despite his efforts. They wear wet towels around their necks and drink hot tea so they can sweat like Ted Striker in Airplane! He proceeds to glare right at me, sensing I'm a rookie, and tosses more water on the rocks to challenge my ability to take the heat. He lifts his feet up on the bench, spread eagle and unclad, and begins a rant about the fabled "crazy Russians" who also frequent the Hastings Steam & Sauna. In the hazy room are a handful of relaxed young dudes, an old, tattooed man, and an Eastern European with slicked-back hair and Ric Flair's skin. I'm nude, sitting in a men's only public sauna in downtown Vancouver, trying not to pass out from the extreme heat.
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