ADVENTURES OUT WEST: AN INTRODUCTION

It was the Spring of 2019. I had just graduated from Mohawk College (for the first time) and was planning my next steps at McMaster University. Apart from being unsure of what I wanted to study, the other reason I had attended Mohawk was for the opportunity to play volleyball at a varsity level. It seems crazy now that I would base my educational pathway on a sport I played growing up, but apparently that's what people do. 

I remember being stressed because I wasn't sure of how I would spend my summer. It was the first time in my life where I had no athletic responsibilities weighing me down. As the cliche states, the world was my oyster - except for not really, as I would have to be back to attend school at the end of summer, and well, money was an issue. As my hunt for a summer job in Waterdown, Ontario continued to be unsuccessful, I decided to broaden my search. I stumbled upon an opening for summer hires in a provincial park in Kananaskis, Alberta and decided on a whim to apply. Did I know where Kananaskis was on a map of Alberta? Nope. Did I bother to look it up? Also, nope. I just remember thinking that since my mom had grown up in Alberta, and we had visited superficially to visit family a couple of times when I was a kid that it couldn't hurt. So, with a few emails, a very casual FaceTime interview, and the cheapest flight I could find, I wound up out west by mid-June.

Now would be a good time to explain where I was. Kananaskis, Alberta is in the Canadian Rockies, about an hour west of Calgary, and bordering the Canmore/Banff area. It is deep into the mountains and surrounded by wilderness.

When my soon-to-be coworkers (whose names I did not know) picked me up at Calgary International Airport, I knew I was in for an adventure. We made two stops before heading deep into the mountains: the grocery store, and the liquor store. The 1970s Parks Canada cabins that we would be staying in were out of cell service range and lacked Wi-Fi. There was one landline phone to be shared between nine employees and thankfully, the cabins were fully furnished and had electricity and running water.

Within my first couple of weeks, I had already kayaked, hiked a mountain or two, consumed water which I collected from a mountain stream, and saw an encyclopedia's worth of animals. This list included but was not limited to wild horses, moose (both cow and calf), grizzly bears, bighorn sheep, deer, and elk (this list would become much larger as time went on). I also managed to completely forget about the online world and learned how to truly live in the moment - something I think I need to revisit.

I managed to spend two summers in Kananaskis hiking, kayaking, swimming, animal-watching, and exploring the surrounding landscapes and mountain towns. Between all of the activities we also made time for work.

For two summers I managed to achieve the goal I had set for myself. So, how do you successfully combine adventure while making money? You apply to a summer position in a semi-remote area of Canada.