- Dates
- 27 Nov 2026 to 8 Apr 2027
- Price
- Level 1 with job £5,150
Level 1 & 2 £5,800
Level 1 & 2, full season with Revelstoke finale £7,100 - Qualification
- CASI & CSIA Level 1, or Level 1 & 2
- Venues
- Revelstoke BC, Ski Martock NS, Cape Smokey NS
- Protection
Eight Weeks Of Work, And Every One Of Them Is A Busy One.
Most internships hand you a job and then quietly let it go quiet on you. January comes, the lessons dry up, and you are sat in a staff apartment paying rent on a wage that is not there. We have built this one the other way round. You work the New Year, the school camps and the February holiday rush, then you get out before it slows down and go back to the big mountain. And you do all of it with a tight-knit group who will be your best friends by the time you land in Halifax.
$22
A real job, not a token one
Thirty to forty five hours a week at $22 CAD an hour, and Ski Martock guarantees the thirty as a minimum. Weekends included, because that is when the lessons are. It is a proper working winter and it is not for everyone, which is rather the point.
8 weeks
You earn while the earning is good
Your eight weeks are the eight weeks the hill is full. New Year, the January school camps, and the Nova Scotia and American family holidays in the middle of February. You are not there for the quiet bit.
5 hrs
The internal flights are on us
Kelowna to Halifax is five hours across a country the size of Europe, and it is included. So is the flight back west if you take the return block, along with your full season lift pass and every transfer.
45 nights
Then forty five nights of free skiing
When the east coast quietens down you fly back to Revelstoke on 25 February and stay until 8 April. £1,950 covers the flight west and the roof over your head. Your lift pass is already paid for, so the skiing itself costs you nothing.
The Honest Money Bit.
Nobody else selling you a season is going to give you these numbers, so here they are. Move the slider to the hours you would actually work and watch what happens.
Work it out yourself
Wages are Canadian dollars, gross, before tax. Living costs are a range, not a promise. Rent at $600 to $1,000 a month for two months, plus around $200 a week on food, comes to roughly $2,800 to $3,600 across the block. Pounds are converted at 1.8, which will not be the rate on the day.
What the whole winter costs
Careful with that last line, because it is the course and nothing else. It is not your UK flights, your insurance or your living costs. Add those in and the whole winter still comes out somewhere around two to three thousand pounds cheaper than a Standard Internship, which comes to approximately £11,000 all in once you add the course fee, equipment, flights, insurance and spending money. That is the honest comparison and it is the reason this programme exists.
One thing worth saying plainly. You are not coming out here to get rich. You are coming out for the qualification, the season and the life. The money is what makes it possible rather than what makes it worth doing. If somebody is promising you more than this, ask them for the hours and the hourly rate in writing.
Next To A Standard Internship.
Revelstoke to Nova Scotia
The short version
Ten weeks at Revelstoke. Eight weeks of paid work in Nova Scotia to fund it.
Here it is in one breath. You train and qualify at Revelstoke before Christmas. You fly east and spend eight weeks teaching at Ski Martock and Cape Smokey on a proper wage. Then you fly back west for six weeks on one of the best mountains in North America, with your lift pass already paid for.
You come home qualified, with a winter of teaching behind you, friends on both coasts, and money in the bank rather than a hole where it used to be.
- Better than a winter on the couch at home.
- Better than another grey February in the office.
- Better than saying you will do it one day.
The Winter Sports Company team
Your Season, Start To Finish.
Three phases, two ends of a very large country, one lift pass. Tap a block to see what happens in it.
26 December 2026 to 25 February 2027
Work Phase. Nova Scotia.
The day after Boxing Day you fly Kelowna to Halifax, five hours east, and settle into Windsor. Your first paid shift is New Year’s Day, which means you start on the busiest week of the east coast winter rather than easing in.
Then the January school camps, then the Nova Scotia and American family holidays in the middle of February. Thirty to forty five hours a week at $22 an hour, thirty guaranteed. Eight weeks, and they are the eight that count.
+ Who do I actually teach out there?
School groups bussed in through the week, kids programmes and family lessons at the weekend, and adult beginners in the evenings under the floodlights. Nova Scotia learns to ski at Martock, so you teach constantly and you improve faster than you would stood at the bottom of a big resort waiting for a lesson.
A Week At Ski Martock.
School groups in the day, floodlights in the evening, and weekends that fill from first lift. This is a busy week rather than a quiet one, so read it as the top end.
Saturday. The big one.
Kids programmes back to back from first lift, families through the middle of the day, and a queue at the ski school desk. This is the day the money is made and the day you get properly good at this.
Roughly 9 hours
Thirty hours a week is the floor, not the hope. Ski Martock guarantees it for every one of your eight weeks, and most of the group take more, because the hill is busy and the lessons keep coming.
What's In, What's Not.
£5,150. Here is precisely what that buys and what it does not, so there is nothing waiting for you round a corner.
Included
- ✓Level 1 training, 12 days, maximum one trainer to eight, CSIA
- ✓Level 1 exams, 3 days, all module and exam fees paid
- ✓Accommodation in Revelstoke
- ✓Meals in Revelstoke, four breakfasts and four dinners a week
- ✓Full season lift pass
- ✓Internal flight, Kelowna to Halifax, and every airport and resort transfer
- ✓A guaranteed paid instructor job at Ski Martock, minimum 30 hours a week, subject to the three conditions below
- ✓We find and arrange your Nova Scotia accommodation, so you are not house hunting from four thousand miles away
- ✓Visa and insurance guidance from Emma seven days a week, and in-season WhatsApp support from a real person
Not included
- ✗UK return flights, around £700 return or £400 one way
- ✗Travel and medical insurance, £700 to £1,200. Do not skimp on this one, read the second dropdown
- ✗The rent on your Nova Scotia room, $600 to $1,000 CAD a month. We arrange it, you pay for it
- ✗Food in Nova Scotia, around $200 CAD a week
- ✗Your IEC working holiday visa fee
- ✗Skis if you need them, £450 to £1,200
- ✗The optional Revelstoke return block, 25 Feb to 8 Apr, £1,950, which does include your flight back west
- ✗Level 2, optional add-on for £600, taken in Nova Scotia
+ What are the three conditions on the guaranteed job?
Three things, and they are the same three for everybody. One, you have a proper chat with us first so we both know this is the right programme for you. Two, you pass an interview with the ski school manager, which happens in August. Three, you pass your Level 1. Do those three and the job is yours in writing. Nobody has ever been caught out by this who did the preparation, but people have been caught off guard by the interview, so we will get you ready for it.
+ Why does the insurance matter so much?
Because the length of your insurance policy decides the length of your visa. Turn up at the border with a six month policy and you will be handed a six month visa instead of the two years you are entitled to, and you cannot fix it afterwards. It is the single most expensive mistake you can make before you have even put your skis on, and it costs nothing to avoid. Emma walks every client through it.
+ How much money do I need to show at the border?
$2,500 CAD, available and provable. Border officers do ask. Have a statement ready on your phone rather than hunting for it at three in the morning after a nine hour flight.
Revelstoke, Then Windsor.
Two places that could not be less alike, which is most of the appeal.
British Columbia
Revelstoke.
We have a saying in the office. Sheep go to Whistler, goats go to Revelstoke. It is not a polished resort bubble, it is a working mountain town with good coffee, honest bars and a population who are all there for one reason.
The mountain has the biggest vertical in North America and takes nine to thirteen metres of snow a year. It suits beginners better than its reputation suggests, and it will absolutely stretch you if you are already good. You live in our own house on Mackenzie Avenue, two minutes from the shops.
Nova Scotia
Ski Martock.
Windsor is a proper small Nova Scotian town, under an hour from Halifax, and it is friendly in the way only small towns are. There are bars, a gym and places to eat, you are there with the rest of the group, and by the second week you will know half the town by name. It is real Canadian life rather than a resort bubble, which is exactly why people love it.
Ski Martock is fifteen minutes up the road and Cape Smokey sits on the Cabot Trail in Cape Breton, two very different hills and a lot of teaching. You teach constantly, learn faster than you would in a big resort, and get paid properly for it. The pay and the hours are the best we can find anywhere in Canada for a brand new Level 1, and the Atlantic coast on your days off is spectacular.
Go and have a proper look before you book. Put Ski Martock into Instagram, then drop the little orange Google man onto the streets of Windsor and have a walk around. Five minutes of that tells you more than five pages of us writing about it.
After work
Evenings In Windsor.
Windsor on festival day and Windsor on a Tuesday in January. Most of your evenings will sit somewhere in between.
Pubs and bars
The Spitfire Arms is the town pub, with live music on Thursday nights. Schoolhouse Brewery, a wine bar and a gin distillery with a speakeasy tasting room are all on or near Water Street.
Places to eat
A good handful, from a proper diner breakfast to pizza, Chinese and a bistro worth booking for a night out.
Gyms
A couple of gyms and a yoga studio in town, so you can keep your legs strong for the hill.
Sport
The West Hants Sports Complex has an ice rink, an indoor turf field and a walking track, and there is public skating at the Exhibition Arena.
Hockey where it began
Windsor is the birthplace of hockey. Lace up on Long Pond, where the game was first played around 1800, and catch the Long Pond Heritage Classic if it lands on your days off.
Out on the snow
The Fort Edward and Haliburton House trails are great on snowshoes, and the trail round Lake Pisiquid is ploughed all winter for a run or a walk.
Cinema
The nearest is in New Minas, 30 minutes away.
The Halifax mission
Make one weekend a mission. Halifax is under an hour down the road. Watch the Mooseheads at the Scotiabank Centre in front of a proper hockey crowd, then have a night out in the big lights of the city.
Cape Breton, the bolt-on
Cape Smokey.
Cape Smokey sits high above the Atlantic on the Cabot Trail, and it is a very different place to Windsor. The evenings are quiet. No pub, no town full of people you know, just the sea, the sky and a very small community.
It suits couples, people who want early nights and a good book, and anyone going to Nova Scotia simply for how beautiful it is.
If you want to get out to some of the most beautiful places in Canada and work the season there, you can. It is worth a phone call first, so we match the right people to the right venue. The last group we sent up there did not come back. Not because they died, but because they loved it so much.
You do not have to pick one. Most of your eight weeks are at Ski Martock, and it may be possible to add a spell at Cape Smokey on top.
Ski Martock
Most of your eight weeks
Cape Smokey
Bolt-on
What You Come Home With.
Qualify on skis with CSIA in Revelstoke, then add your CASI snowboard Level 1 in Nova Scotia. Or the other way round. Either way, you come home able to teach both.
+ CSIA Level 1
Included in the £5,150, and the qualification that gets you the job. Think of Level 1 as learning to drive on an industrial estate on a Sunday morning with an instructor sat next to you. You are safe, you are legal, and you can teach beginners properly.
Twelve days of training and three days of exams, taught at a maximum of eight to a trainer. Can you fail it? You can. Do people fail it? They do. That is why we train you for twelve days rather than five.
+ Level 2, and when you should actually do it
Yes, you can add it. Level 2 is an optional add-on for £600, and you take it in Nova Scotia while you are working, so you are training alongside a full diet of teaching hours. If Level 1 is learning to drive on an industrial estate, Level 2 is getting back in the car with Lewis Hamilton, so it is a real step up.
Our CSIA Level 2 pass rate is 94 percent. Ask us on your call and we will tell you honestly whether you are ready to add it this winter.
+ Eight weeks of real teaching hours on your CV
Not printed on any certificate, and arguably worth more than one. A ski school manager reading your application next autumn cares about how many hours you have taught, not how many exams you sat. Eight weeks at thirty to forty five hours a week puts you a very long way ahead of somebody who did a four week course and went home.
People Who Have Done It.
A small group ran this programme in 25/26. Here is one of them, in her own words rather than ours.
Georgia Dickinson
Revelstoke to Nova Scotia, 25/26
Georgia on her first four weeks in Revelstoke, and what to expect.
This one is not for everybody, and we would rather say so now than in January.
If you want one big resort all season with 50 to 100 other instructors, take the Standard Internship at Panorama or Big White instead. It is a brilliant winter and we will happily talk you through it. This programme is for the person who wants more out of a winter. Ten weeks of training and skiing at Revelstoke, one of the most exciting resorts in North America, spread across the season, with eight paid weeks in Nova Scotia in the middle that make the whole thing happen. And you do it as a small, tight-knit group, travelling from one side of Canada to the other together. You leave with a qualification and come home with best friends. Nothing beats that.
Take the time to do the sums. Financially, this is our best option, hands down.
Talk it through with usIs This One For You?
Read both columns properly. The second one is not there to be polite.
This is for you if
- ✓You want to come home with money rather than a maxed out overdraft
- ✓You would rather be working than twiddling your thumbs on a quiet afternoon
- ✓You are happy in a small town and can make your own fun
- ✓You want the qualification and the hours, not the après
- ✓You are 18 to 35 with a UK, Irish, Australian or New Zealand passport, so the IEC working holiday visa is open to you
- ✓You can show $2,500 CAD at the border
This is not for you if
- ✗You want to stay in one big resort all season
- ✗Your priority is training depth rather than work. Look at the Hybrid instead
- ✗You need a lively nightlife to enjoy a winter
- ✗You cannot commit to weekends, because weekends are when the lessons are
- ✗You are under 18. The visa does not exist for you yet
+ What if I am over 35, or my passport is not on that list?
Talk to us anyway. There are sponsorship routes for people who are not IEC eligible and we have made them work before, but they take longer and they are not guaranteed, so the earlier you raise it the better. Emma handles visa queries seven days a week.
Where You Need To Be Before You Fly.
You do not need to be brilliant. You need to be solid, and you need to be fit. Here is the honest read.
+ Novice
Not yet. You would spend the twelve days catching up rather than training, and the exam would be a bridge too far. Come and do a Level 1 Only block first, or give yourself a season of practice.
+ Intermediate, the level you need for this programme
Parallel turns on blues and happy having a go at reds. That is all you need. Twelve days of training at a maximum of one to eight takes somebody from here to a Level 1 pass, and our coaches do it every winter.
+ Strong intermediate
You link parallel turns confidently on any red, you can handle a black without panicking, and you ski all day without falling apart. You will find the training comfortable and spend more of it on the teaching side, which is where most of the marks are.
+ Advanced
Comfortable. You will pass Level 1 and spend the spare capacity on your own skiing and on the teaching side, which is where most of the marks actually are. You will also find the Revelstoke return block genuinely exciting rather than daunting.
+ Expert
You are well clear of what Level 1 needs. Add the Level 2 for £600 and take it in Nova Scotia, and you will get far more out of your winter.
Whatever level you are at, turn up physically fit. You are going to get pulled through the wringer for twelve days and there is no point being the fastest lumberjack in the forest if your axe is blunt. Our Snow Ready Fitness Programme is free, and you want to start it in September.
Before You Decide, Take These.
Send me the guidesThe Budget Guide
The real all-in cost of a Canadian season, including everything people forget. Read this one before you read any provider's price list, ours included.
The Visa Guide
IEC step by step, including the insurance trap that costs people eighteen months of their visa.
The Kit Guide
What to bring, what to buy out there and what to leave at home. Nova Scotia is colder and wetter than British Columbia, so pack for both.
Snow Ready Fitness
Free, twelve weeks, start it in September. The people who do it enjoy the first fortnight. The people who do not, survive it.
Questions People Actually Ask.
+How much will I really earn?
Between about $5,280 and $7,920 CAD gross across the eight weeks, depending on how many shifts you take, and thirty hours a week is guaranteed as the floor. Take your living costs off and you are looking at roughly two to five thousand Canadian dollars left in the pot. We would rather give you a range with the reasoning attached than a single flattering number that falls apart when you get there.
+Why only eight weeks in Nova Scotia? It used to be ten.
Because the last couple of weeks were the quiet ones and you were paying rent through them. We have moved those weeks back to Revelstoke instead, where you have a lift pass and a proper mountain. You earn near enough the same in eight busy weeks as ten patchy ones, and you finish with forty five nights at Revelstoke instead of twenty one.
+Can I do my Level 2 on this programme?
Yes. Level 2 is an optional add-on for £600, taken in Nova Scotia alongside your paid teaching. Have a chat with us first and we will tell you honestly whether it is right for you this winter.
+Is the job actually guaranteed?
Yes, subject to three things, and they are the same three for everyone. A proper chat with us, passing an interview with the ski school manager in August, and passing your Level 1. Do all three and the job is yours in writing.
+Can I do ski, snowboard or both?
Yes, any of the three. Take your CSIA ski Level 1 or your CASI snowboard Level 1 in Revelstoke, and if you want both, add the other discipline in Nova Scotia. Same dates, same route and the same job whichever you choose.
+Where do I live in Nova Scotia?
We arrange it. A basement suite, an apartment or a house share in or around Windsor, and you pay the rent, budget $600 to $1,000 CAD a month. It is normal living rather than a resort staff block, which most people prefer by about week three.
+What is Windsor like, honestly?
Friendly, easygoing and a proper slice of Canadian life. There are bars, a gym and places to eat, Halifax is under an hour away for a bigger night out, and the Atlantic coast is on your doorstep. You will be there with the rest of the group, working hard and having a great time doing it.
+Do I pay tax on my Canadian wages?
Yes, it is deducted at source like any Canadian job, and depending on what you earn you may get some of it back when you file. Ask Emma, she has been through this with a lot of clients and she will point you at the right form rather than guessing.
+What happens if I fail my Level 1?
You can retake it, and we will help you arrange it. It does delay the job, because passing Level 1 is one of the three conditions. Twelve days of training at one to eight is specifically designed to stop this happening, and most people who struggle turn up underprepared physically rather than technically.
+How does this compare to your Standard Internship?
Standard is £6,950, one big resort all season, some Level 2 training included, full time work but at a resort where January goes quiet. This is £5,150, or £7,100 if you take the Revelstoke block and stay to 8 April. So the full season here costs about the same as the Standard, except you earn considerably more while you are out there. All in, with equipment, flights, insurance and spending money, a Standard season comes to approximately £11,000. What you give up here is the Level 2 training and the single big resort. What you get back is the money. If the budget is the thing keeping you awake at night, this is the one.
+How big is the group?
Small, deliberately. Ski Martock is a small hill and there is only so much accommodation in Windsor, so this is not a programme we can sell to a hundred people. Training ratios never go above eight to a trainer, and in Nova Scotia you will know everybody's name by the end of the first week.
+Am I protected if something goes wrong?
We are ATOL bonded and you get an ATOL certificate when you book. Not the most thrilling paragraph on this page, but worth knowing it is there.
£5,150
Level 1 plus eight weeks paid. Level 1 & 2, £5,800. Level 1 & 2 with the Revelstoke finale to 8 April, £7,100
