What counts as Canadian-made here?

What’s the main material?

It depends on what you’re buying. For a sauna we trace the wood of the walls and benches, since that’s most of what you’re paying for. A heater or a stove gets traced by its steel body, and a cold plunge by its tub and its chiller.

Everything else still gets named on the listing. A buyer wants to know the heater comes from Finland, and saying so costs a Canadian builder nothing.

Where does the evidence come from?

It comes from the maker first. We read its product pages and manuals, and we keep the address of each page that names where the product is built, with the day we read it. Those links sit under the stamp on every product page.

A newspaper feature or a government record can back a maker up. When an outside report is all we have, the listing says who reported it. Our own reasoning never puts a product on the list, however likely it looks.

We reread every maker at least every six months. A redesigned website, a new range or a new owner sends a maker back to the top of the pile sooner.

Why don’t the stamps say “Made in Canada”?

Those words carry legal tests that only a maker can check. The Competition Bureau’s guidelines on origin claims ask “Made in Canada” to mean the last substantial transformation happened here, that at least 51% of direct costs were Canadian and that a qualifier such as “with imported parts” comes with it. “Product of Canada” needs 98%.

We can’t see a maker’s costs, so we report the step and the place the maker names: built in Owen Sound, from cedar milled in Ontario. When a maker prints one of those phrases itself, we quote it with its qualifier.

The same thinking keeps the maple leaf off the stamps. The leaf belongs to the site’s name, and next to a product it would read as our own verdict.

Which parts usually come from somewhere else?

The heater, most often. Several Canadian builders fit Finnish heaters from Harvia or Narvi, or Estonian ones from HUUM, and their listings say so.

Canadian heaters exist too. Homecraft builds electric heaters in British Columbia, and Saunacore makes its own in Toronto. Ontario has wood-stove shops as well, including Henki and Fenno. Nootka says its Cube comes only with a Homecraft Revive, Copperwood fits Homecraft heaters in the barrels it builds in Alberta, and Northern Lights ships a Saunacore heater in its barrels.

What haven’t we found yet?

We haven’t found a heater or stove maker here that says where its steel comes from, so none of them sorts into the first group yet. The infrared makers we’ve read don’t name the country their heating panels come from either.

Cold plunges have a gap of their own. Several tubs are built in Canada, and we couldn’t confirm a chiller that is. We also haven’t found a sauna builder in Atlantic Canada with a website that says where it builds. If you know one, tell us at editor@canadassaunas.com.

How do we price and describe what’s listed?

Prices come from the maker’s own Canadian store. When a maker sells only through dealers, we name the Canadian dealer we priced it from. Every price is in Canadian dollars with the date we read it, and the listing says what it leaves out. The heater and freight are the usual gaps, and tax is never in.

Specs come from the maker’s pages and manuals, and a figure only the maker has measured carries the maker’s name. We review from those documents and from owner reports, summed up in our own words. Commissions never move a listing, and the disclosure page explains how the site is paid for.

Can a maker get listed?

Yes, if its own website says where it builds. Send us the page at editor@canadassaunas.com and we’ll read it the way we read everyone else’s. Corrections go to the same address, and we fix every copy of a fact at once.

Questions readers ask

Does a sauna with a Finnish heater count as Canadian-made on Canada's Saunas?

Yes, when its maker builds the sauna in Canada. Canada's Saunas sorts saunas by where they're built and what their walls and benches are made from, and the listing names the imported heater. Nootka's wood-fired barrels, for example, come with a Harvia M3 stove from Finland.

Does Canada's Saunas list a sauna built in Canada from American cedar?

Yes. A sauna built in Canada from imported wood sits in the "built here" group, and its listing says where the wood grew when the maker says. Western red cedar grows on both sides of the border, so the maker's own words decide it.

Does Canada's Saunas test the saunas it lists?

No. Canada's Saunas reviews from makers' pages and manuals and from owner reports, and it never claims to have used a product. Each review closes with a line naming its sources and the date we read them.

How often does Canada's Saunas recheck where a product is built?

Canada's Saunas rereads every maker's statement at least every six months. It rechecks sooner when a maker redesigns its website, changes its range or changes hands.