Chairlift above a Canadian resort in golden afternoon light
The guide library

Everything We Know, Written Down.

Which resort. Which course. Whether you can ski well enough yet. What it really costs once you have added flights, insurance, kit and the visa. Whether the visa turns up in time. Whether you can disappear for five months without wrecking the job you already have. Which qualification actually gets you hired. Who you will be sharing a room with. What to pack, what to leave at home, and how cold minus thirty genuinely feels at eight in the morning. Whether this is your first winter away from home or your first winter off work in twenty years.

Still with us? Nobody daydreams about baggage allowances, or visas, or age concerns or taking the right qualifications. But every one of those has caught somebody out, so we wrote the answers down. Sixteen years of them. Help yourself.

21 free guides 3 tools coming soon More added each season
Browse the library
Stage one

Before You Choose.

Most people pick the wrong course because they compare prices before they compare winters. Start with what you can actually ski, how long you can go for, and which mountain suits you.

Course Finder front cover Coming soon

Course Finder

Twelve honest questions about ability, budget, age and timing. You get the best fit, a sensible backup, and the ones to leave well alone.

Coming soon
Resort Comparison Guide front cover

Resort Comparison Guide

Big White, Sun Peaks, Panorama or Revelstoke. Mountain size, snowfall, accommodation, nightlife, terrain, and who each one genuinely suits.

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Internship Comparison Guide front cover

Internship Comparison Guide

How much of your winter is training, exams, shadowing, paid work and free skiing. A realistic breakdown rather than brochure fluff.

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Ski Ability Guide front cover

Ski Ability Guide

Work out your real level, what each course expects on day one, and whether to train now, arrive early or pick a different programme.

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Snowboard Ability Guide front cover

Snowboard Ability Guide

Snowboard levels, course requirements, and what you need to be comfortable riding before a CASI or freeride programme.

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Internship Guide front cover

Internship Guide

Training, exams, accommodation, resort jobs, visas and costs, plus what life is actually like on a Canadian instructor internship.

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Ski Patrol Guide front cover

Ski Patrol Guide

What the job really is. Avalanche control, medical response, ropes and sleds, the training, the visa reality and the honest bit about the money.

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CSIA Qualification Guide front cover

CSIA Qualification Guide

Level 1 gets you in the door, Level 2 makes you employable, Level 3 makes it a career. What each one lets you teach, and what the exams ask of you.

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CASI Qualification Guide front cover

CASI Qualification Guide

What CASI Levels 1 to 4 mean, what each one lets you teach, how the exams run, and where the snowboard route genuinely differs from the ski side.

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CSIA Level 2 Ski Exam front cover

CSIA Level 2 Ski Exam

What examiners actually look for, why good skiers still fail, and the training habits that make the difference in your final weeks.

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CASI Level 2 Snowboard Exam front cover

CASI Level 2 Snowboard Exam

The riding, the teaching and the mindset you need on exam day. The mistakes that trip riders up, and how to use your free riding days properly.

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Girls On Tour front cover

Girls On Tour

Will I be the only girl in the group, will I be good enough, how do I settle in? Each worry answered honestly, plus which courses and internships suit you.

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What Nobody Tells You About A Season In Canada front cover

What Nobody Tells You

Jet lag, supermarket prices, seven interpretations of washing up, and the quiet week in January when your hours drop. The bits that never make the brochure.

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Stage two

Before You Book.

This is where the deadlines live. Visa timing, real costs, and the conversation with your parents that goes better when they have read something proper.

Price Calculator front cover Coming soon

Price Calculator

Course fee, flights, insurance, food, kit and spending money. Move the sliders and watch the real total, with no hidden extras.

Being checked. Back soon.
Meet The Goat chatbot front cover Coming soon

Meet The Goat

Sixteen years of answers in one chatbot. Pass rates, wages, visas, room types. No sales patter, and it never goes to bed.

Being checked. Back soon.
How To Book Your Course front cover

How To Book Your Course

When to secure your place, what happens if you leave it late, and how to avoid losing the resort, room type or programme you wanted.

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Parent Guide front cover

Parent Guide

Safety, accommodation, visas, insurance, support, costs and what actually happens once your son or daughter lands in Canada.

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When To Obtain A Visa, part one, front cover

Visa Guide, Part 1

When to enter the IEC pool, what to do while you wait, and how visa timing affects booking, flights, insurance and resort work.

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The Real Cost Of A Canadian Season front cover

The Real Cost Of A Season

The course fee is the headline, not the total. Flights, insurance, food, kit, the visa, and the money you have to land with. Add it up now rather than in February.

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Insurance Guide front cover

Insurance Guide

The cover you genuinely need for an instructor course, and the gaps that catch people out. We are not brokers, so this is advice rather than a sales pitch.

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CV & Interview Guide front cover

CV & Interview Guide

What snow school managers look for, how to turn a gap year or career change into a strength, and how to answer the questions that catch people out.

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Travel and Flights front cover

Travel & Flights

How we get you from your door to the slopes. Baggage allowances, booking windows, transfers, and why an ATOL certificate is worth having.

Coming soon
Stage three

Before You Fly.

Booked, visa in hand, three months to go. These are the ones people wish they had read in September rather than the week before the flight.

Fitness Guide front cover

Fitness Guide

Arrive stronger and fitter for long training days, exams, cold weather and the occasional ego check from Canadian terrain.

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What To Take front cover

What To Take

A packing checklist for the whole season. Ski gear, travel essentials, documents, tech, toiletries and the things people always forget.

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Clothing Essentials front cover

Clothing Essentials

Base layers, ski socks, gloves, helmets and apres layers. What to wear for a full Canadian winter, and what not to bother buying.

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Any age, any stage

Not Everyone Is Nineteen.

We wrote these because older clients kept asking questions the rest of the library never answered. They are not age-gated and they are not only for the over-forties. If you are coming to this with a career, a mortgage, a bit of rust, or a reason that has nothing to do with a gap year, start here.

You Don't Need A Visa front cover

You Don’t Need A Visa

Over the working-holiday age limit, or not planning to work? You can still train, qualify and ski the whole winter on an eTA. What that route allows, what it rules out, and why it is often the simpler one.

Coming soon
Do I Have To Become An Instructor? front cover

Do I Have To Become An Instructor?

No. Plenty of people take the course for the coaching and the winter, and never teach a lesson. What you get from the training if a job is not the point, and when the exam is still worth sitting.

Coming soon
Not A Gap Year front cover

Not A Gap Year

Who's really on an adult course, and why you'll train with people at your level. Three training groups, three different paces. Where you'll stay, the quieter apartments, and the bits of a season you can happily skip now.

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Coming Back To It front cover

Coming Back To It

Skied a lot once, not much since. How quickly it comes back, what has changed in the kit and the technique, and how to turn up ready rather than rusty.

Coming soon
The Reset Winter front cover

The Reset Winter

When the point is less the qualification and more getting your head straight. What a season can genuinely fix, what it cannot, and how to pick a course with that in mind.

Coming soon
Fit Enough At Forty-Five front cover

Fit Enough At Forty-Five

Back-to-back days on snow ask more of a body at forty-five than at nineteen. Recovery, knees, and the training to start three months out. Honest about what is realistic.

Coming soon
Women's Only Ski Improvement Camps front cover Coming soon

Women's Only Ski Improvement Camps

Small groups, coaching that understands a woman's body, and a pace that suits you. Who the camps suit and how to choose the right one.

Coming soon
Behind closed doors

The Onboarding System.

The guides above are the public library. Behind them sits the part clients actually get: a full onboarding system that runs from the day you book to the day you clock on, sequenced so each piece arrives when it becomes useful rather than in one unreadable dump in July.

It is not the same pack for everybody. An internship, a course and a patrol placement ask completely different things of you, so each route has its own sequence, its own deadlines and its own checklists. You get yours, and none of the pages that have nothing to do with you.

Booked To Boots On, internship onboarding front cover Interns

Booked To Boots On

Every step between signing up and your first day in resort. The working-holiday visa from pool entry to port of entry, flights and transfers, insurance that covers instructing, the ski school interview and what they ask, your training timetable and exam dates, uniform, kit list, arrivals, room allocation, bank account and social insurance number, first pay cycle.

Unlocks when you book
Before The First Shift, ski patrol onboarding front cover Patrol

Before The First Shift

Patrol asks more of you before you arrive than any other route, and nearly all of it has a deadline. Medicals and fitness standards, the first aid ticket and when to sit it, prerequisite paperwork, avalanche and toboggan training dates, the kit that is genuinely non-negotiable, shift patterns and what your first week on the hill actually looks like.

Unlocks when you book
Your Course Unpacked, course onboarding front cover Courses

Your Course Unpacked

No work permit, no interview, far less paperwork. An eTA, a flight, insurance, a bag packed properly and a body ready for consecutive days on snow. Plus your coaching group and daily timetable, exam dates if you are sitting one, lift pass and rental collection, accommodation and arrivals, and what the mountain expects of you in week one.

Unlocks when you book

Built Around You, Not A Template.

We only send what applies. If you are twenty-nine and paying your own way, you will never see a parent guide. If you are on a course and need no work permit, the visa timeline never lands in your inbox. Nothing is padded out to look thorough.

Everything we take you through

Paperwork and eligibility. Visa or eTA, whichever applies. Flights, baggage and transfers. Insurance that actually covers what you are doing. Medicals and first aid where the role needs them. Pre-season fitness. Kit and clothing, bought once and bought right. Money, banking and your first pay cycle. Accommodation and who you are living with. Arrivals and your first forty-eight hours. Lift pass, rentals and uniform. Coaching groups, timetables and exam dates. Resort life, local admin and the quiet weeks. Then someone you can actually phone, all season.

See the courses →

More Guides Land Through The Season.

New ones get added as the questions change. If there is something you wanted and could not find, tell us and we will either point you at the answer or go and write it.