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Gap year in Canada! Emily’s diary
When I first got the news through that I’d been excepted for the October group of Gap Challenges Canada trip I was absolutely ecstatic, soon after however I started to feel extremely nervous about heading off to a different country with a group of people I didn’t know to do a job I at that point new nothing about (we didn’t receive our job title’s until a few weeks before departure) but in my usual style I shook off the feeling, as after all I’d be meeting everyone going out at the same time as me at an orientation in September. Gap Challenge (part of the World Challenge organisation) helpfully provided a chat room for their “challengers” to get to know one another and receive advice from past participants in the program.
Orientation was surprisingly a lot of fun; I got to meet everyone headed out to both Lake Louise and Sunshine Village, the 2 resorts to which the challengers are sent each year, which resort we would each be placed in would be discovered after the orientation. It was good to meet all the people I’d be heading out with, we played team building games, had a first aid talk and watched the infamous “Fish” video which was destined to follow us all across the sea to Canada! Soon the news came that I and 22 of the people I had met would be headed out to Lake Louise (I was stoked as this was where I had wanted to go!) and that my job would be as a Starbucks Host in the main lodge, I was provided with a list of emails for everyone in our group and quickly set about building on the friendships I’d started with a few of them already and to say hello to those I hadn’t spoken to much before.
All too soon it was time to get packed and go to the airport to embark upon my North American adventure! I was upset to learn that the 3 people I’d chatted to the most were on the earlier flight (they’d had to split the group over 2 flights) but I’d be spending the next 6 or so months with them so it didn’t really matter! After a small hitch involving discovering that our flight had been cancelled and the quick thinking of one of the lads’ parents we managed to get on a flight to Vancouver, this meant having to change and fly back to Calgary but at least we’d get there after all! We touched down in Calgary sometime after midnight, and after a quick meeting with the in country agent Jacqueline we all fell into bed at the Calgary youth hostel we’d be staying in before the 2 hour drive to LL the next day.
We explored Calgary for a few hours the next day, picking up the Canadian equivalent of the NI cards, and I picked up a decently priced snowboard, in my experience it’s better to get gear like a snowboard or skis’ out there and in a big city, the boards in LL were expensive but not as expensive as buying one in the UK! We scenery on the drive to LL was spectacular as we got our first taste of the mountainous landscapes we’d be living in for the next 6 months! (The contracts with RCR the company that runs Lake Louise were for 6 months, but they always got extended, just like the Visas we were given in the airport, we’d already been granted 6 month work visas, but they extended them to 12months with no fuss at all). We arrived at the Staff Accommodation, Charleston Residence, or Chuck Town to the locals, and were divided off into rooms, there were 3 other Gapers’ in my unit the girl I was sharing with and 2 other girls who were also sharing, the other 4 inhabitants of our unit joined us later in that first week. The season started a week later and I found myself and 3 others 2 Aussies and a Canadian girl being trained to pretty much run the Slope side Coffee Bar between us for the rest of the season!
Work was incredibly tiring during the busiest periods of the season and incredibly boring during the first few months and the last few months! As you’d imagine I formed fast friendships with my colleagues and even now 2 years one still speak to one of them regularly and the other 2 sporadically via email. I managed to start myself off on the wrong foot by breaking a bone in my wrist on my first run of the season, so I pretty much learnt to do everything I the coffee bar one handed, I’ll always remember the Food and Bev manager Adrian laughing about it and saying he knew someone would break something in their first week! (It was inevitable really a full season ski pass came with the job!) I worked 5 days a week for roughly 8 hours with a 30 minute lunch break, the pay was pretty bad as accommodation and about 3 different kinds of tax came out of it, but it was enough to go out drinking after work and buy enough food to live on, so I was happy! Banff was the nearest decent sized town, about 45 minutes by car or greyhound coach, hitching is common in Canada although I would not recommend doing it on your own! But it’s a fun way to meet some interesting people.
I was amazed at the speed at which time passed soon my cast as off and I was headed for my 2nd run of the season! And I sprained the same wrist. Some of us just do not take the impact of the snow very well I suppose! But even with all these injuries I was still having an awesome time! The ice rink was open and we could go skating in the evenings ad the inter-departmental hockey tournament was about to start when we had an unusually warm end to January and a lot of snow melted, the slopes weren’t too badly depleted but there was a lot of ice after that, the winter was one of the worst in the last 10 years. My days as a “Starbucky” as we were nicknamed flew past at amazing speed and soon the snow was melting and the Lifties (about 8 of which were gap challengers) were all sporting tremendous goggle tans! It’s so surreal to be getting a tan in a vest top while working the bar at a snowboarding competition, surrounded by snow!
Our contracts were due to end on the 12th of may as was the ski season so I and a few of my friends set about planning our travels through Canada before we all headed home, we all had just over a month before the dates on which we were due to fly back to the UK mine was the 15th of June so plenty of time to see as much of Canada as possible. We discovered that the cheapest way to travel was by Greyhound coach so this was how we got from town to town, but due to the time and arrangements we had made we still had to take a few flights across the country to do all we wanted to do. If you apply for a HI (Hostelling International) card you get a discount at any of their hostels which were liberally scattered throughout Canada. Our travels took us from Lake Louise to Jasper, then across to Toronto on the Greyhound (that would be a 64 hour bus trip, cheap but exhausting) we got to see the interior of Canada but it turns out it all looks the same once the mountains are behind you! We then flew back across the country to Vancouver to meet a friend and we all travelled to Victoria Island for some relaxation and surfing before hitting Vancouver again and then flying to Montreal for the Formula One Grand Prix. Back we flew to Calgary and then got a bus back to LL to spend some time with our remaining friends (most had already gone home or were travelling else where, but some stayed for the summer season at the hill) and to climb a few mountains, hiking in and around Lake Louise and Banff is pretty awesome in the summer though you have to watch out for bears! Until I flew back to the UK on the 15th of June 2005 with a good tan, a lot of healing snowboarding injuries, a lot of photos (as you can see) and an experience I will be sure to treasure for the rest of my life!
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