wilderness Lifestyle Experience

TRAINING

Our Wilderness Lifestyle Experience Training

Our Wilderness Lifestyle Experience takes place at our guest ranch research centre in a remote, rural location in the South Chilcotin Mountains of British Columbia. Throughout your Wilderness Lifestyle Experience, you will learn all the basics that are essential for living in a wilderness location and allow you to be self-sufficient. Learn how to split wood, identify and harvest wild edibles, cook over the campfire, maintain our gravity-feed water system and care for the horses, chickens, dogs and cats. Each season provides different challenges and opportunities that arise from living alongside nature.
Once you have mastered the basics of living in the wilderness, you are ready to develop your skills further, contribute to the community and play your part in conserving the natural environment. Our wilderness lifestyle experience allows you to stay with us for up to six months, so you can get involved in all aspects of ranch life. During the Wilderness Lifestyle Experience program you will have the opportunity to experience all of the departments that make up our ranch community to get an overview of our activities. You will gain the skills you need to become more deeply involved at the ranch:

In the office, learn how to run an ecotourism business, including sales, bookings, social media, website maintenance, content creation and scheduling.
Outside, move sprinklers for irrigation, take care of our garden, collect eggs from the chickens, take care of the animals, fix equipment and maintain the water supply.
In the kitchen, learn how to cook meals for more than twenty guests, plan ahead to order groceries and take on new challenges such as cooking and serving meals outside or adapting a recipe due to supply shortages.
With the Chilcotin Ark Institute, contribute to conservation on all levels from wildlife population counts and data collection to high level management plans.
On our sustainable woodlot learn about sustainable logging and forest management for wildlife habitat and carbon storage.

Invest in Yourself

Once you have two weeks of experience participating in every department, you will create your own schedule and set your focus according to your interests, goals and purpose for joining us. Through participating in each of these departments and all aspects of daily ranch life, you will grow and evolve personally and professionally. When you invest in yourself with our Wilderness Lifestyle Experience you take responsibility, initiative and ownership for everything you do. You are committed, flexible and adaptable, positive and solution-orientated. You learn how to face the challenges that nature provides and come up with innovative and constructive solutions.
Throughout your Wilderness Lifestyle Experience, you will live as part of our supportive community. We are like-minded people who have also made the commitment to invest in our personal development, connect with nature and contribute to conservation. We are self-sufficient, empowered and conscious and aware.
If you are looking to join us for an internship, but aren’t able to get an International Experience Canada Visa, this could be the training program for you. It covers the same aspects as our internship programs. It gives you the opportunity to progress from entry-level to management positions, as much as you are willing to invest in yourself. The Wilderness Lifestyle Experience facilitates countless opportunities to learn from nature, to grow and evolve and make your contribution to conservation.