UKH

Hi all!

As the title, looking for any advice on a Whistler ski season for 24/25. 

Would be a group of 4 going out to live and look for work, we all either ski or snowboard proficiently and have experience in bar jobs, cleaning and other resort-y type jobs but don't have any snowsports quals. 3 of us also have CWI/RCI if that opens up anything (maybe if there's an indoor wall there?).

Is it worth doing a ski instructor course out there before the season, or is it relatively easy to find accommodation and work once you're already there? Is it worth going through something like BUNAC or going out there and just finding local bar jobs?

We'd ideally be going out there for that idealistic work half the week and ski the rest, not bothered about high paying jobs as long as it's enough to get on the pistes and pay for food and rent! We're all more than happy being ski bums but realistically we have no idea how possible it is!

Any advice welcome.

Cheers!

You need to touch base with people there, you've plenty of time as you've obviously got 9 months to sort out any visa issues. Search for Whistler groups on FB. Have you searched their ski pass costs?! 

I'll caveat this by saying I've not skied Whistler but have been riding bikes there and my partner spent a significant part of a winter season there.

It depends what you want, but if your primary aim is skiing, I'd recommend going to an interior BC ski area like Nelson, Fernie, Golden etc. Work could be harder to find but it'll be less busy with a different experience to European resort skiing. Although these areas are smaller they have some great skiing and loads of easily accessible backcountry.

I'd try the Brits in Vancouver page on FB as a starting point; they'll be able to point you to better groups to help with this. I only know accommodation gets snapped up way in advance but I was in Vancouver not Whistler.

Enjoy - it's fab there. 

Edit - do you actually have a visa yet?

Unfortunately no real advice… other than to steal some wise words from a senior ski bum… work your ass off now, get enough dough to cover you season pass, housing and food etc. Then ski anytime you want or the conditions are good…

in short, have enough money to cope without any Jobs. You can still have a look once there, but also know that it is not needed. 

Thanks for the advice so far everyone. The only real reason we were looking at Whistler was as the biggest resort around it should be easier to find jobs. Not all of us would be in the financial position to fully fund a winter season out there (recently graduated students with no savings!) so jobs would probably be a must! 

In reply to Queen of the Traverse:

No visa yet, we're still sort of in the planning stage of deciding where to go and to do what, so we thought it best to at least have a relative idea of where we would go and what jobs we could get before we applied for visas! We'd also heard it was easier to get an employer-sponsored visa instead of an open, which would be akin to a job already lined up out there.

I have no knowledge whatsoever on this but I think if you're expecting an employer to sponsor your visa application in return for one seasons casual labour you might be disappointed.

Also i think Canadian visas take an age to come through?

Looks as if internaional experince canada visa might be the one for you

You’ll probably get more informed advice on snowheads.com, if you haven’t already posted on there

maybe don't check out this year's snow conditions at Whistler....

Whistler is a very difficult place to live on low wages.  Some jobs will give you a place to live, it will be as you would expect when you put a group of young energetic people together [that may or may not be attractive to you].

I know Canada made getting temporary visas a bit harder a few years ago, but google will tell you more than i can.  Most of the people working the lifts etc are not Canadian - they even give you a cute name badge that includes your city/country.

Vail, the current owner of Whistler, is not that popular and not known for being a good employer. But there are plenty of bars, etc in town, most of them with signs out front saying 'help wanted' or 'we are shutting early tonight due to staff shortages'.  Because it is very expensive to live there. 

I agree with a poster above who said to go to one of the interior places.  Or Banff/Sunshine/Lake Louise/Kananaskis.  Banff is pricey too, but not as.  But the east side of the Rockies gets an awful lot colder than the west.

I agree with the other comments here. Whistler is super pricey and gets well over-run in the holidays. 

Revelstoke and Nelson are super nice places to hang out, and the big mountain terrain at Revelstoke are to die for..

John C

Not sure if the OP would get that in time for this winter (but I honestly don't know - it's years since I did it). 

​​​​​OP - good luck anyway. I've not spent loads of time in Whistler but Squamish is one of my favourite places on earth.  

There is a questionnaire thingy you can do on the CIC (immigration dept) website that'll explain your visa options and ofc a whole host of blogs etc from people who've done it before.

I did whistler ski season 13/14 working as instructor.  Getting that role as a brit without prior experience was tricky, they had a lot of returning staff from previous seasons, or applications from staff that had worked in other resorts.

There were three or four companies offering a route in, where you did four weeks of training with them, then the CSIA/CASI instructor test. Not sure if BASI without experience held any weight.  Companies were Alltracks, Yes, Oyster. Marketed as "gap year" or "university" schemes. To get on this, you needed confirmation of visa already, then CV and screening interview with the staff of these companies, then a Skype interview with the head of WB ski school. Focus in applications was as much on teaching/coaching/leadership as it was ski ability.   This route pipelined everyone into kids or adult beginner lessons, so days were always on nursery slopes to blue and lots of snowplough.  But lots of extra training on mornings and days off.

Overall, cost to get out there and set up, didnt come home with much savings, but I was fairly self sufficient out there and skiing every day off and didn't work a second evening job in the bar.

This also got me set up with staff housing- 4 sharing a small flat in twin rooms.  Housing in Whistler was hard to secure then and has only got worse since from what I hear. 

A guy I knew worked in the climbing wall there in the summer, but he was also working on one of the zipline tour operators so infer it wasn't enough hours/pay to just do that.

Also this.

The usual route was to get the international experience Canada working holiday visa.

Once out there, if you did a couple seasons work for a company they might entertain the idea of sponsoring. I did ziplines in summer and if I'd stayed with them through winter on a second year of IEC they said they'd have maybe helped me with staying longer with a sponsorship.

The brits I knew who managed to get WB to sponsor them for ski instructing, had to do two winters with WB and flip to southern hemisphere in between to get some consecutive winter experience.  Worked up to pass level 2- 3 CSIA, have a record of clocking so many hours instructing per season.

The labour markets too saturated with people that want to get paid to ski at a world class resort that they can take their pick from people who tick more boxes against their list of wants for the role.

Well that was the case 10 years ago and before the Vail takeover anyway.