Staff Member turns into ambitious Entrepreneur

Alison has been working for Chilcotin Holidays since February, 2008. During her employment at the ranch, her responsibilities ranged from customer service, office administration, form and template development, writing detailed procedures, working with spreadsheets, data analysis, staff scheduling, and marketing. Recently she has taken the first steps in starting her own business, Birkenhead Business Solutions. With a science degree in International Horticulture Management and experience in Project Management and Process Optimization under her belt, Alison is planning on working as a virtual assistant and consultant. Her home based business will give her the flexibility of offering services to companies virtually anywhere via online correspondence and telecommunications. For more information on the types of services offered by Alison, check out her website.

Social Networking and Website Updates

Check out our new official group and the Chilcotin Holidays profile on Facebook. We’ll keep you updated on the current news and events, for example our upcoming special deals, last minute trips, discounted courses and much more. You can be added as a friend or you can become a fan of Chilcotin Holidays for exclusive ranch updates.
Our photography competition will award the winner with a free 2-night (3-day) all-inclusive ranch stay. The competition will run until September 30th so spread the word and start sending us your photos. Members of facebook can upload them right to the photography competition group or if you’re not a member of facebook you can email us your pictures (include photo credits) and we will upload them to the group for you. The photo must have been taken in our Guide Territory. The winner will be notified October 1st. Good luck!
Take a look at the latest additions to our website. You’ll find new videos and we’ll soon be uploading clips of the guide training taking place right now! YouTube – coming soon to YouTube will be instructional How-To videos, hosted by our long standing wilderness guide, Russell Floyd. New website for our Spruce Lake Park Backpackers Lodge will be launched at the end of May ready for the summer season.

Employment Opportunities only limited by your Imagination

As the new season approaches, we are welcoming back some of our amazing staff members – Doug, Russ, Bob, Willi and Todd. We’re also happy to be welcoming Randy back to help guide some trips this summer. Randy works as a Restaurant Manager in resort town of Whistler. He took the guide school a few years ago and comes up to the ranch each summer to guide on his free time. This is just one example of the flexibility the guiding industry can offer you. We hire all of our guides out of our pool of guide school graduates and will be looking closely for eligible candidates to join our team this summer. Contact us for more information.

Guide School Student Bios

First wilderness guide school of the season is off to an excellent start. With a successful completion of the first week, these students are ready to begin the second leg of their journey. They will be heading to camp for the second half of their training and will be perfecting their skills at the shoeing, and packing. With long days of riding ahead of them we are sure the beauty of the mountains will make their hard work worth it. Lead by expert backcountry wilderness guide, Russ, and assisted by guides Bob and Willie, these students are in for an experience of a lifetime. These nine students from diverse backgrounds show a wide ranch in age and interest. Here is a brief overview of this year’s starting lineup:

Jill and Jackie, two sisters aged near 60, fun gals, lead an all-girl riding camp on Vancouver Island and plan to expand their services to overnight pack-trips.
Nicole,21, from Ontario has experience in the hospitality industry and wants to acquire skills to attain employment at a guest ranch or wilderness lodge.
Damian, 23, a German carpenter, came to Canada to practice his English and experience the Canadian wilderness. After his 12-month working holiday in Canada he intends to go back home to study architecture.
Daniel, 26, from Manitoba is a farmer. He wants to be an outfitter one day and is here to improve his horse-related skills so he can open the door to a lifelong dream.
Stephanie, 19, comes from Ontario and worked as a camp counselor. Her goal is to combine and expand her skills to include horse guiding.
Sebastian, 20, a guy from downtown Vancouver has trained as a chef. He is passionate about the outdoors and is looking for a balance. Working part-time as wilderness horse guide seems like a great solution.
Teresa, from Hope, BC, has her own horses wants to learn the skills of shoeing and packing to enable her to take her own horses into the mountains on overnight trips.
Mike, 32, from Nova Scotia has his own wilderness guiding business that operates across Canada in different seasons. He operates a dog-sledding business in northern Québec in the winter and goes guiding in Ontario in the summer. With the skills as a horseback guide he can really round out his services.

Entry Ticket

Our Wilderness Guide Training Course running April 27 – May 9 2009 is almost full. If you’re interested in taking part in one of these early 2-week courses, then you better get your contract in ASAP, as these last spots will be given on a first come first serve basis. These spring courses offer graduates a full season of guiding after the course. Not only Chilcotin Holidays, but many other outfitters across the country will be hiring their staff soon, and looking for a solid foundation of skills when they hire their guides. Having taken this training is basically your entry ticket to the world of guiding, so don’t wait until it is too late. Visit our website or contact us for more details about these opportunities.

Government Funding for Training

The training programs offered at Chilcotin Holidays are registered with the PCTIA (Private Career Training Institutions Agency of British Columbia) and are eligible for government funding. We provide a wide variety of courses for jobs in the wilderness tourism industry (see the training section on our website). For more information on the programs being funded by the government please click here. www.servicecanada.gc.ca The Canadian government is putting approximately $3 billion into funding for educational career training and this includes special industry sectors like manufacturing and forestry. Other categories include the self-employed, youth, and older workers etc. If you’re thinking about getting training in the wilderness tourism industry, then contact us and we’ll assist you with your new career.

Horse Dentistry

Well horse dentistry is not what I had expected when I arose on Saturday morning. However each day at Chilcotin Ranch is not like the last, there is always something new to throw yourself at, quite literally in this case. After we had finished the exhilarating task of chasing, lassoing, and holding the stomping, kicking horses while they were given the wormer. Kevan decided to let us help him file some of the horse’s teeth. So it was Damian’s and my job to hold the horses while Kevan did the filing. The first two horses, Tom and Yalokom went pretty smooth with Damien and myself taking turns at filing the horse’s teeth.
Then came the last horse, which was the smallest of the whole herd, JP and he decided he certainly did not want to participate in "seeing the dentist" (neither would I to be honest). So as Kevan showed us how to file down their teeth. But at the moment we thought things were going to go smoothly, he went up with legs with us holding on for dear life and trying to control him. After some time off this he decided that we had it over him and he reluctantly let us finish. Once we were finished he was more than happy to snack on some rolled barley. Then we retired to lunch a little bit wiser and quite a bit sorer but happy none of the less.
Brooke and Karl, Australia – 2009