The Elk Rapids farmers market closed for the 2026 season on October 2. The village calendar still has fish fry, euchre and yoga. As of this fall it also has a wood-fired sauna on Ames Street with ice baths outside.
Hearth Sauna had its Elk Rapids Chamber of Commerce ribbon-cutting on October 21. The Chamber's newsletter reported a big turnout, and State Representative John Roth helped welcome owner Nick Olson. The times on Hearth's booking calendar match the evenings and weekend mornings the village's off-season calendar already uses.
Find It on Ames Street, Go In From Lake Street
The address is 119 Ames St, and the Chamber's event listing says to enter off Lake Street. Each session gives you 70 minutes in a traditional Nordic sauna with ice baths, at your own pace.
The Chamber newsletter describes how a session goes. A sauna guide checks you in, gives first-timers a quick tour, and shows you the cubbies in the foyer and the changing room. You can go in and out of the sauna as often as you like. The newsletter says most people spend 5 to 15 minutes in the heat, take a break outside, maybe try the cold plunges, drink some water, and repeat.
Each time slot on the Elk Rapids booking page holds 10 seats. That's small enough that a group of friends can fill a good share of one session. Hearth's FAQ says you can book a session privately by buying all 10 seats, if they're open, or by contacting Hearth about other private options.
The Booking Calendar Matches the Village's Off-Season Week
As of late October, the Elk Rapids sessions run Wednesday and Friday evenings at 4:00, 5:30, 7:00 and 8:30 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday at 9:00 and 10:30 a.m. and noon. New sessions open on a rolling basis about two weeks ahead and get added during the week. Treat those times as a snapshot, and check the booking page before you plan around a specific slot.
Here's how those times line up with the weekly events in the Elk Rapids Chamber's latest newsletter:
| Day | Hearth Sauna sessions | Also on the weekly calendar |
|---|---|---|
| Wednesday | 4:00, 5:30, 7:00, 8:30 p.m. | Wine Club Wednesdays at BOS Wine, 12 to 6 p.m.; Gentle Stretch & Flow at ER Yoga Flow, 5:30 p.m. |
| Thursday | None posted | Euchre at the Side Door at the Blue Pelican, 6:30 p.m. |
| Friday | 4:00, 5:30, 7:00, 8:30 p.m. | Friday Fish Fry at the Blue Pelican Inn, 4 to 9 p.m.; Friday Night Fish Fry at the Town Club, 5 p.m. |
| Saturday | 9:00, 10:30 a.m., noon | Vinyasa Flow at Elk Rapids Yoga Flow, 9:30 a.m.; Providence Farms, 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. |
| Sunday | 9:00, 10:30 a.m., noon | Restorative Yoga at ER Yoga Flow, 6 p.m. on the third Sunday |
Friday works out best. A 5:30 session ends at 6:40, which still leaves more than two hours of the Blue Pelican's fish fry, since it runs until 9. The Town Club's fish fry starts at 5 at 133 River St. That makes a 4:00 session followed by dinner on River Street an easy Friday.
On weekends the sessions are clustered from 9 to noon. That leaves afternoons open for errands, Providence Farms, or anything else on the calendar. Thursday evening has no sauna sessions posted, which leaves it open for euchre at the Side Door.
The Monthly Membership Pays Off by the Fourth Visit
Hearth posts three prices on its pricing page:
- Single session pass: $35
- 10-session pack: $280, which works out to $28 a visit
- Unlimited monthly membership: $125 a month, good for one visit a day, cancel anytime
Four single passes cost $140, so the membership costs less by the fourth visit of the month. Against the 10-pack's $28 rate, the membership comes out ahead at five visits, since five visits from the pack cost $140.
Four visits a month is one a week, which is about what the calendar already suggests if you make it a Friday or Sunday-morning habit. If you go less often, the 10-pack's $28 rate still beats a single pass. Hearth also sells gift cards through the same page, which is handy with the holidays coming.
Hearth Started in Traverse City
Elk Rapids gets a sauna from an owner who has spent several winters building sauna culture around the bay. Olson grew up in Traverse City. A company release says he came back to Michigan to build businesses around mental, physical and social health. In a Voyage Michigan interview from February 2025, he said Hearth opened its first Traverse City location at Mt. Holiday in late March 2024 and added a downtown site later that year. Today Hearth's Traverse City address is 777 Boyd Ave.
Olson also helped start the Michigan Sauna Fest at Clinch Park with Vlad Borza of Sleeping Bear Saunas. The Traverse City Record-Eagle covered the plans for the first festival, set for Feb. 28 through March 2, 2025. The plan included mobile saunas by the boat launch and cold plunges in West Grand Traverse Bay. In that article Olson talked about how sauna brings people together at a time of year when it's easy to stay home. "It's pretty special to have a social place in winter like this," he told the paper.
The second festival ran April 10 to 12, 2026, per the Record-Eagle's preview. A photo caption in the Record-Eagle after the event said organizers sold more than 300 tickets. A third festival in 2027 is listed online, but the date is still TBD.
Before this fall, a public sauna session meant driving south. Hearth's Boyd Avenue site is in Traverse City. MI Sauna runs a bookable sauna at Traverse City State Park Beach on US-31 North, listed at $35 a seat for 85 minutes. The Michigan DNR's park page lists it as a park concession. Elk Rapids does have a cold-water tradition of its own. Short's Pull Barn hosted a Special Olympics Michigan polar plunge on March 21, 2026, using the Plungester mobile pool. No 2027 date has been posted yet.
Plenty to Pair With a Session This Weekend
The first full weekend of November has a lot going on within a few blocks of Ames Street, and several events fall in the gaps between sessions. These are from the Chamber's calendar:
- Friday, Nov. 6: The Elk Rapids Players open Oliver! at HERTH, 7 to 9 p.m. Tickets are $25 for adults, $18 for anyone under 18, or $60 for a family pass. A 4:00 sauna session ends in time for dinner before the curtain.
- Friday through Sunday, Nov. 6 to 8: Soups, Stews & Chili at Royal Farms, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day.
- Saturday, Nov. 7: Grass River Natural Area's Wild Turkey Trot 5K starts at 11 a.m. That overlaps the 10:30 sauna session, so the 9:00 slot or the noon slot after the race works better. Oliver! also plays its second night at 7.
- Sunday, Nov. 8: Sunday Game Day at the Town Club, 1 to 8 p.m., and the Lions Football & Food Competition at Short's Pull Barn, 4 to 8 p.m. Either one follows a noon session easily.
Further out, HERTH's A Starry Starry Night fundraiser is Saturday, December 5, at Historic Elk Rapids Town Hall. Doors open at 6 p.m. for dinner, craft cocktails, a silent auction, music and dancing, and semi-formal attire is encouraged. The Chamber newsletter also lists holiday-party bookings for groups of 20 to 300 at The Nest, Gabby's, Blue Pelican and Overlook at the Chief. Banquet menus start at $28.99 per person.
Hearth hasn't posted how its Elk Rapids sessions will run after the current two-week window. The booking page is the place to check before you plan a Friday around it.
We like seeing a new business pick hours that work for the people who live here year-round. At Craig Real Estate, we keep track of what opens, what's on the village calendar, and how Elk Rapids spends the off-season. If you're thinking about what a winter here looks like for you, whether it's year-round or a second home you'll actually use in February, schedule your free consultation and we'll talk it through.
