A Career in the Mountains Felt Out of Reach
My name is Jamie, I'm 24 years old, and until recently I had spent my whole life living in Perth, Australia. I've now moved to Canada permanently to pursue a life and career in the mountains.
I've been skiing since I was six years old and, for me, nothing has ever really come close to it. Growing up in Perth meant skiing was always something I had to travel for, so every trip felt like something I spent the rest of the year looking forward to. Once I realised that people actually built careers around skiing and working in the mountains, it became something I wanted to find a way into.
The problem was that for a long time, working in the ski industry felt pretty unobtainable. I had just finished a Bachelor of Science and, like a lot of people, felt some pressure to follow a more traditional career path. I had pushed the idea of moving overseas and working in the snow to the side because I didn't really know how to get started. Then I came across EA Ski & Snowboard Training on Instagram. What appealed to me was that it gave me a genuine pathway into the industry rather than just arriving at a ski resort and hoping something worked out. I reached out to the EA Ski and Snowboard team, chose Mount Washington on Vancouver Island, and from there everything started falling into place.
.jpeg)
A Ski Season at Mount Washington
Deep coastal snowpack. Old-growth forest hikes. Empty waves. A mountain crew that has your back. This is what your winter looks like at Mt Washington. The island's wet Pacific air means the mountain collects amazing snowfall. We are talking over 11 metres of snow in a good season, which makes for some legitimately deep riding when it all stacks up. But it's the vibe here that really sets it apart. It's got that easy-going, island-life energy where everything feels a little more relaxed, a little more connected.
You finish your teaching day and you've got options: hike through old-growth rainforest, grab a surfboard and find a quiet break on the coast, or just hang out with the tight-knit mountain community that makes this place feel like home. It's a full lifestyle at Mt Washington. You are on an island with incredible nature on all sides, surrounded by people who genuinely love where they are.
See what it's really like living and working at Mount Washington
Why I Chose Mount Washington?
Mount Washington stood out to me straight away. The opportunity to spend a winter skiing and working on Vancouver Island sounded way too good to pass up. Looking back, choosing a slightly smaller resort was also one of the best decisions I could have made. Mount Washington had a really friendly atmosphere, and because of its size you quickly started recognising people from all over the mountain. By the end of the season, I knew people working across different departments rather than only the instructors I had started with. We skied together, worked together, went out together and spent so much time around each other. That social side of the season was something I hadn't fully appreciated before going over. You arrive in Canada knowing very few people and suddenly find yourself surrounded by people who have moved across the world for basically the same reason you have. It made it incredibly easy to build friendships.
Life as a Ski Instructor: More Than Just Skiing
Working as an instructor also changed the way I looked at skiing. I had skied for most of my life, but teaching forced me to think about the sport completely differently. Instead of just knowing how to make a turn, I had to understand why something worked, recognise what was holding someone else back, and figure out the best way to communicate it to them.
Some days involved helping very young kids make their first turns, while others involved taking stronger skiers onto more challenging terrain and helping them progress. Every lesson was different, and learning how to adapt to different personalities, abilities, conditions and terrain became a huge part of the job.
There was also something pretty special about spending your working day on skis. Even on difficult days or in horrible weather, I would occasionally remind myself that this was now genuinely my job. During the season I also worked towards and achieved my PSIC Level 2 Big Mountain qualification. The training pushed my own skiing significantly and gave me a much stronger technical understanding of the sport than I had before the season.
From University to the Ski Industry: How Jamie Found His Path
As much as I enjoyed instructing, ski patrol had always been the direction I ultimately wanted to go. What I hadn't had before coming to Canada was mountain-industry experience. Through EA Ski and Snowboard Training, and my season at Mount Washington, I was finally able to build that. I gained experience working professionally on a ski hill, developed my skiing through my PSIC Level 2, completed avalanche training, and had the opportunity to spend time shadowing patrol at Mount Washington. Seeing what patrol actually did day to day only made me more certain that it was the career I wanted to pursue. Since finishing the season, I've continued building towards that goal through Advanced First Aid training, and I have now secured a position in Ski Patrol for the upcoming winter.
That is probably the biggest thing I've taken away from the whole experience. When I first found EA Ski and Snowboard, I was sitting in Perth having just finished university and wasn't really sure how I could turn my love of skiing into an actual career. One season later, I had worked as a ski instructor in Canada, earned my Level 2 qualification, gained real mountain experience and put myself in a position to begin the career I had wanted from the start.
What's Next? A Career in the Mountains
Right now, I'm preparing to begin my first season working in ski patrol. My goal is to keep developing over the next several years and become as capable and highly qualified a patroller as I can. There is a huge amount for me still to learn, which is part of what attracts me to the job in the first place. Eventually, I would also love to work towards becoming a patrol avalanche dog handler. Moving from Australia to Canada and choosing to pursue a life in the mountains was a pretty significant change, but it has turned out to be exactly what I wanted.
If I hadn't come across EA Ski and Snowboard Training and taken that first step into the ski industry, I'm not sure I would be where I am now. What started as a way to spend a season working on snow ended up giving me the experience, qualifications, friendships and confidence to completely change the direction of my career. And now I'm just looking forward to the next winter.
