Living in the mountains!

We’ve now officially been living in Sun Peaks for almost six weeks! In some ways the time has gone by so quickly, but in other ways it feels like we’ve been here for years. This place is just as surreal as when we first arrived – the novelty of waking up every day and being surrounded by snowy mountains definitely hasn’t worn off yet.

Luckily we got some snow just prior to opening day, but then we had some really warm weather (“warm” being positive 3 degrees…) which unfortunately melted away a lot of the snow we had. However, last night we had our biggest dump for the season yet – 14cm – and it looks like more snow is finally on its way!

   

The first few weeks of the resort being open without much snow were difficult for everyone – there were unhappy guests and fewer hours for lots of people. Luckily Mitch has still managed to get full-time hours most weeks, and with my job not being weather dependent I’ve been working full-time hours since we arrived.

Dealing directly with guests has its ups and downs (people are much more up front here compared to back home!) but the people in my team are so much fun to work with and every day is different. I’ve also been given the opportunity to work in the marketing department one morning a week doing the snow reporting. My shift starts at 5am and involves recording the snow fall from overnight, updating the website and social media pages, writing a grooming report and doing a radio announcement (in my least Australian accent possible!).

I absolutely love my job so far and Mitch is really enjoying his too, particularly because his job allows him to snowboard every day! Seeing as my job is indoors, any time I’m not working is spent practising my snowboarding – it is so much fun!

  

 

Apart from working and snowboarding, our spare time is usually spent at the pub or someone’s house in staff accommodation. There’s always something to do around here and despite the long walks to and from work, living in staff accommodation is pretty fun!

 

We’ve also joined an ice hockey league here! We’re in the beginner/novice division, although both teams we’ve played so far should have been in the advanced division (as you could probably guess, we haven’t won a game yet). The games are hilarious to watch, luckily a few people on our team are decent players which makes up for my terribly uncoordinated attempt to hold a hockey stick and skate at the same time.

 

With only 6 sleeps until Christmas, the resort is starting to look a lot busier and much more festive! We had our staff Christmas dinner a couple of weeks ago – $2 for a buffet meal which we all took advantage of considering most of us have been living off frozen meals and Mr. Noodles (Canada’s version of 2 minute noodles). We also found a tree outside which we’ve put in our unit for our ‘Christmas’ tree, it looks pretty pathetic but it will do! A package from home arrived yesterday which had lots of presents in it, including a little Christmas tree which we put beside our real one (thanks Mum!). Being away from home this year means we’ll definitely miss our families on Christmas day, but we’re also excited for our first ever white Christmas!

  

Vancouver, Whistler & settling in at Sun Peaks

We had two free days in Vancouver after returning from our Moose tour. The first was spent applying for our SINs (Social Insurance Numbers – similar to a tax file number back in Aus) and opening Canadian bank accounts which are both required to work in Canada. This went pretty smoothly, although the banks here all charge transaction fees and/or monthly fees which is something we’re not used to back home!

As usual, rain was forecast for our last day in Vancouver but we still decided to head to Stanley Park (which is like Vancouver’s equivalent of New York’s Central Park!). We hired bikes and rode the loop of the park, which is almost entirely surrounded by water.

 
We spent the afternoon at an ice skating rink in Kitslano, trying our best to keep up with the locals . My skating skills were obviously pretty rusty though as I was quickly approached by a little Canadian kid who told me he knew straight away that I wasn’t from this country as I looked like I was dressed “for the arctic”!

 

The next morning we packed our bags and caught a greyhound bus to Whistler – Canada’s largest and most popular ski resort. We had pretty high expectations of Whistler but also knew it was populated with Aussies and that we were coming in “dead season”. We were right on both counts – there was an Australian working in every store or pub we went into and the village was like a ghost town! It was still beautiful though – we went for a big hike around Cheakamus lake and explored the Whistler Olympic Village.

    

After 2 nights in Whistler we were more than ready to leave for our final destination, Sun Peaks! Saturday was a long day of travelling but we eventually arrived in Kamloops, which is the closest city to Sun Peaks. We were met by the lovely Ian and Danielle (soon to be our new Canadian parents, but more about them later!).

The drive up to the mountain took about 45 minutes and unfortunately it was too dark to see much of the resort. We were excited to check into our unit in the staff accommodation building. Room 102 was now our new home for the season! The unit was what we were expecting, small but has everything we need. The major downside to staff accommodation is that the building is about 2km from the village itself – which means lots of early walks to work and late walks home from nights out!

 
The next few days were spent exploring the village and meeting other people as they arrived. We’ve been lucky enough to meet some awesome people already, the community at Sun Peaks is nothing like I’ve ever experienced. Everyone is so friendly and is always more than happy to help you out. Ian and Danielle are the perfect examples of this. As I mentioned before, they have become ‘Canadian parents’ to lots of the Aussie kids here already. Since we arrived, they have taken us on multiple trips down to Kamloops for shopping (there is no grocery store on the mountain so we stocked up as much as we could!) and had us over for dinner twice – both times we’ve left in food comas. We can’t thank them enough for taking us under their wing and helping us out 🙂

 

The rest of the week has been a blur, it already feels like home here (we decorated our room too after finally getting blu tack!) Mitch and I have had so much fun celebrating our 22nd birthdays this week and we’ve also started training for our jobs.

Unfortunately there hasn’t been much snow yet, but it has been FREEZING. You can be easily fooled into thinking it’s warm because it’s sunny and there’s blue skies, but the temperatures have hovered between -15 and -5 all week. We’ve learnt to layer, layer, layer!

There’s now only 6 days to go until opening day – they’ve been snowmaking like crazy to make sure at least one run will be open. The locals keep reassuring us that snow will come eventually, we just need to be patient 🙂 For now, we’ll just enjoy this incredible place and appreciate the time we have before the busy season begins!

     

Our first week (and a bit) in Canada!

After over 24 hours of flying and being in transit (Adelaide – Sydney – Los Angeles – Vancouver) we finally arrived in Canada. We’ve now been in this beautiful country for 10 days and they have been the most incredible, jam-packed days of our lives!

Unsurprisingly, our first day in Vancouver was cold and raining… But the autumn (or should I say ‘fall’) scenery was still so pretty.

We caught up on some sleep then headed straight to a shopping mall to buy some winter clothes as we didn’t bring many with us. We ended up spending quite a bit more than we’d planned BUT with -15 temperatures coming up we need to be prepared with lots of layers!

Sunday was much better weather wise so we decided to tick a few touristy activities off our list – Capilano Suspension Bridge and Grouse Mountain.

Walking through mazes of bridges among the treetops was nothing short of amazing and the gondola ride up Grouse Mountain was really good too, although it was quite foggy when we got to the top.

That night we headed to Rogers Arena to watch our first ever ice hockey game – Vancouver Canucks versus Washington Capitals. Mitch was decked out in his Canucks gear, and we got there so early they let us watch the players warm up from right behind the glass. Our actual seats were literally in the highest row (as we expected!) but we still had a pretty good view and the atmosphere was awesome.The game was intense but confusing – we were ready for an exciting fourth quarter until we realised there are only three periods in ice hockey and the game was over!

Monday was the beginning of our 8 day Moose Bus tour. We were picked up by our tour guide, Cody, from our hostel in the morning and met the other people we’d be travelling with. There was a mix of ages and nationalities in our group – around 18 people in total. Our first day consisted of lots of driving, lunch at Lake Kawkawa and a jet boat ride.

Our hostel in Kelowna was our first real taste of backpacking accommodation – our room stank of weed and feet and we shared it with 6 other people! We ended the night with a BBQ dinner and a few drinks which got everyone talking more and getting to know each other.

Tuesday we jumped back on the bus and headed for our next destination – Banff. We had lunch at Revelstoke and got our first glimpse of snow at Rogers Pass. The colder weather was now starting to hit! Our accommodation in Banff was much nicer than the night before. After dinner a few of us caught the bus into town to explore for a bit. Banff at night time is like Disneyland, surrounded by beautiful mountains.

On Wednesday morning we woke up to a pretty cool sight – some Elk outside our window!

We left Banff and drove to Lake Lousie, which is apparently in the Top 10 most scenic drives in the world. Cody led us on a huge hike up a snowy mountain which was worth it for the amazing view of Lake Louise at the top.

 

To recover from our hike we decided to have a quiet night in at the hostel – dinner, a game of pool and some drinks – which then escalated to some people going for a midnight swim in the freezing, glacier fed river next to our hostel!

The next day we left Lake Louise for Jasper and stopped at some beautiful lakes for photos along the way. Lunch was eventful – Mitch and two other guys, Jake and Jonas, decided to run down and explore the mountain which led to Mitch’s GoPro camera falling out of his pocket. After an extensive search which didn’t look promising, Jake managed to find it in a bush! That night we stayed at an isolated hostel in Athabasca Falls (which had no showers or toilets) and had a campfire with toasted marshmallows.

After checking out Athabasca Falls and the incredibly blue Peyto Lake on Friday morning (and taking some Yoga photos which is what every tourist seems to do here), we headed back to Banff to celebrate Halloween which is huge in Canada. The dollar shop provided the goods for some last minute costumes and we began the night at the hostel bar before heading to a local pub for a big night of partying.

 

Thankfully we had a free day in Banff on Saturday so we got up a bit later than usual and had a delicious breakfast in an attempt to cure our hangovers. Although the weather wasn’t so great, we decided to check out the Banff Hot Springs. As most of us didn’t pack any bathers, we hired traditional swimming costumes which looked hilarious. The hot springs were AMAZING, it was -2 degrees and snowing outside but a steamy 39 degrees in the water. We finished the night with a massive dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory and a delicious ‘Beavertail’ which is a Canadian dessert – sort of like a flat donut and your choice of topping.

 

As we said goodbye to Banff, we also had to say goodbye to quite a few people from our group who were staying to work for the season, travelling somewhere else or heading home. There was now only 7 of us left for the long journey on the bus back to Kelowna then to Vancouver. Our last dinner was cooked for us – some much needed vegetables and steak. We also had a couple of bottles of champagne to celebrate the final night of the tour before leaving for Vancouver on Monday morning 🙂

Overall, we absolutely loved the Moose tour and made so many great friendships with people from all over the world. We’ve now got friends in London, Belgium, Germany & Holland who we will hopefully keep in touch with and visit sometime in the future!

Not long now…

I can’t believe how quickly the last month has gone – it’s now less than three weeks until we leave for Canada!

The weather is slowly getting warmer, day light savings started yesterday and Mitch’s hay-fever is worse than ever – all familiar signs that summer is just around the corner here in Adelaide. As much as I’m going to miss lazy days floating in the pool, road trips to the beach and outdoor BBQs with the family, I’m also beyond excited to experience a Canadian winter and my first white Christmas! We’ve also realised we’ll be in Canada for Halloween, both our 22^nd birthdays, Thanksgiving, New Years, and Australia Day.

We’ve organised a few more things since I wrote in here last time…

• Accommodation

We’ll be staying in a ‘dorm-style’ unit in one of the Staff Housing lodges (called Whispering Pines Lodge) for the duration of our time at Sun Peaks Resort. Our unit looks pretty small and basic BUT it’s cheap and when we’re only getting paid $11 an hour we can’t be too picky, haha.

 

• Moose Bus Tour

Since we’ll have about 3 weeks between arriving in Vancouver and starting work at Sun Peaks, we started to look into some places we wanted to visit. We briefly looked into hiring a car but we wanted to visit some places in the neighbouring province of Alberta which would be a pretty long road trip. Eventually we came across a hop-on hop-off bus tour run by company called Moose Travel Network – it looks perfect for what we want to do/see!

The particular tour we are doing is called ‘Caribou’ and it runs for 8 days, but if you want to stay longer in a particular place you can and then you can just catch the next Moose bus that comes through. The package we bought includes all transport, accommodation in hostels, activities and some meals. Below is a map with the main places we’ll be visiting –

Once we get back from our bus tour, we will do a bit more exploring of Vancouver then probably (depending on funds!) head to Vancouver Island and Whistler before making our way to Kamloops, then Sun Peaks 🙂

The excitement is starting to sink-in – 18 days to go!

Our story so far…

Ok so here’s a bit of a summary of the last few months and everything that’s happened so far in the lead up to our Canadian working holiday!

Early June – We spontaneously attended an information session at STA travel about working holidays in the US and Canada. Found out about lots of different resorts, job opportunities and amazing experiences that were on offer. Left the evening with itchy feet and many brochures in hand but realistically thought it wouldn’t really be possible for us to do with Mitch still being at Uni. Discussed possibly looking at it again in 2016 when Mitch finishes Uni.

Late June – A couple of weeks passed and neither of us could stop thinking about the information session we’d been to. I began doing a bit more research into the whole ‘working holiday’ thing and found what STA and many other working holiday companies were offering was basically a rip-off. While the guaranteed job interview was appealing (although this involved the additional cost of flying ourselves to Sydney or Melbourne), I found many Canadian ski resorts accepted applications online directly from international applicants. Not only would doing this  ourselves save money but we’d have much more flexibility in the resorts and types of jobs we could apply for. The only other benefit of the $1000 package was ‘visa assistance’ but after some quick googling I found the application for a Canadian Work Permit was extremely straight forward, particularly for Australians.

Early July –  We decided to take the plunge and book our flights to Canada! After we found out Mitch could finish Uni slightly earlier for the year, we booked our flight to Vancouver for October 24^th.  This allowed for either a best or worst case scenario –

1. Worst case scenario: If we couldn’t secure jobs prior to leaving, we would be able to attend job fairs at some different ski resorts in late October. Job fairs are basically where you can rock up and have an on the spot interview, mainly for the ‘less desirable’ jobs that are still vacant like cleaners etc.
2. Best case scenario: If we could secure jobs prior to leaving, we’d have a few weeks to do some travelling around Canada before starting work.

Late July – With a number of different ski resorts in Canada to choose from, we began to start narrowing down our options. These two websites were really useful as they listed the pros and cons of many Canadian resorts:

http://www.boardworld.com.au/forums/viewthread/13765/

http://www.powderhounds.com/Canada.aspx

We ideally wanted somewhere that had staff accommodation on the mountain, wasn’t too packed with Australians, was ski in/ski out and most importantly accepted international online job applications. Keeping all the above in mind, we eventually decided on Panorama Mountain Village, Big White or Sun Peaks Resort.

After emailing the HR departments at these resorts, they each confirmed we could apply online when a suitable job vacancy came up and they would try to arrange Skype/phone interviews. This was definitely encouraging news! We began checking the job vacancies daily, and it wasn’t long before Mitch spotted a Lift Operator position at Sun Peaks Resort. He applied and almost immediately received a reply saying he would be contacted for a Skype interview in August! Since I hadn’t seen any jobs at Sun Peaks that appealed to me yet (I definitely wanted something indoors haha) I decided to try and contact departments directly. I started with Guest Services and emailed my resume to the manager explaining our situation and expressing my interest in any customer service related role. Similar to Mitch, I also received a quick respone saying I’d be contacted for a phone interview in August!

August – After some confusing time zone conversions, my phone interview was organised for 7am on August 4^th and Mitch’s for 5.30am on August 15th. I was actually more nervous than I’d expected to be, but was put to ease immediately by the friendly Canadian accent of the Guest Services supervisor! We chatted for quite awhile about the role and the resort – she seemed impressed by my resume and even mentioned there may be an opportunity for me to do some work in their marketing department because of my uni degree! Overall the interview went really well and the position sounded perfect for me, minus the fact the starting wage was $11 an hour 😐 (apparently that’s not bad compared to some other positions!)

I ended up receiving my job offer less than a week after my interview! Woohoo! My supervisor was pretty confident Mitch would be fine to receive an offer too, and sure enough his Skype interview went smoothly and he landed the Lift Operator job a few weeks later! Mitch’s start date was set for November 11th and mine for November 14th.

So, this will officially be new home and place of employment for the upcoming winter season… we’re pretty excited!

 

Welcome to our Canadian travel adventures!

With less than 50 days until we leave for Canada, I thought it would be a good time to start documenting the lead up to our trip and what we’ve planned so far.

Hopefully this blog will keep our family and friends back home updated with what we’re up to while we’re away and will be something for us to look back on when we come home!

 

 

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