I would like to tell about my experience in Canada, where I worked as a videographer/photographer for the winter season 2015/16. I worked at British Columbia’s (B.C.) third largest ski resort named Big White Ski Resort, 60kms from the city of Kelowna.
Getting the job:
The process of getting a job started in august 2015. I knew I wanted to work in a Canadian ski resort on the west coast – but I had no idea in which one. In july 2015 I was on vacation in Canada, where we drove all around B.C. for a month. On that trip we came across Whistler, Kicking Horse, Revelstoke and Lake Louise which are some of the largest and famous ski resorts in North America. I applied for various jobs at almost all the resorts I could find in B.C. and Alberta. I applied for jobs such as snow shoveller, lift operator, shaper etc. – jobs you can get without needing to have any special training or education. What I ended up with, was the position as a videographer/photographer that Big White offered me. I got offered other jobs from other resorts, but I found the job as a videographer most interesting. It gave me a lot of experiences what you normally wouldn’t get to experience.
The job:
As a videographer/photographer my job was to create promotional content for social media, their website, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, posters, catalogues and magazines. I worked for the cable car company and got paid for 37,5 hours of work a week. Some weeks I worked all seven days, and in other weeks I only worked four days – I varied a lot. An important part of my job was to deliver fresh photos from the mountain to be posted on Facebook and Instagram in the morning, before the resort opened. The best thing about the job, was that it gave me access to all the departments and the whole mountain almost whenever I wanted.
The mountain and resort:
As written earlier, Big White Ski Resort is B.Cs third largest after Whistler and Sun Peaks. The mountain summit is at 2319 m and the village is in 1755 m above sea level. The vertical drop is 777m from top to bottom. I relies 100% on natural snow. Snow guns are only being use in the park for the features. Doing the winter season 2015/16 we had a snow base of 300cm most of the season, and received a total of 900cm of snow.
It is know for being Canada favorite family resort
Stats:
Lifts: 16 (1 T-bar, 10 chairlifts, 1 gondola and 4 magic carpets) Doppelmayr and Poma
Snow guns: 4
Snow groomers: 11 (3 Prinoths and 8 PistenBullys)
Helped out the grooming department with their submission for the PB video contest in north america