Holiday Update

There's only four days until christmas, and what a christmas it will be. Everyone here has been experiencing Banff during the holiday season! The staff christmas parties for the hills were this week, everyone in attendance had an absolute bast. Some of the houses organized secret santas with their housemates. The snow is also excellent right now; great conditions on the hills and a very festive atmosphere in town. It will be a very white christmas! Everyone will be working hard over the holidays as the town starts to become busy and the resorts fill up.

From all of us here at Gap Year Canada: We hope you have a happy holidays!

Happy Holidays!

Wow... less than a week to go until christmas. There has been no shortage of festivities over the past week either; with multiple community events and the Gap Year Canada ABC christmas party/gingerbread house competition. To top it all off, we got a great dump of snow over the weekend, resulting in great conditions at the resorts!
Cedar took home the prize for best gingerbread house with the half pipe they created.

The winners and their gingerbread half pipe.

 Celebrating the holidays Gap Year Canada style!

The ABC theme (anything but clothes) had some interesting results...

With more snow in the forecast followed by a few sunny days, the holiday season is shaping up to be a good one!

Passed!

Congratulations to Rob, Carla, and Michael, who as of yesterday afternoon are certified snowboard instructors! Over the past three weeks the three of them have spent 12 days on course at Mount Norquay training for their CASI level 1 certification. In just this short amount of time they completed their requirements and are now certified to teach for the season.

The ski and snowboard instructor courses are a great way to fast track your career and have the time of your life while doing so.

Working at the Lake

Look who we ran into while we were skiing this weekend. When it's this nice out you can't possibly not love working outside! The past few weekends we have had great weather, a bluebird day is a  beautiful thing up at the resorts.

James Turner working Ptarmigan lift at Lake Louise.

Working an riding at the hills, you get great views of the surrounding mountains.

Happy Holidays!

Christmas is nearly here, and in Banff that means the Santa Claus "Parade of Lights." Every Year there is a beautiful procession of floats created by local businesses that kicks off the holiday season.

The group out this year is really looking forward to Christmas, for some of them it will be their first away form home!

Stay tuned for pictures of the continued festivities over the next few weeks, including the gingerbread house that each chalet is currently working on.

Have a Great holiday season!

Working At Sunshine

Here is a little video we put together from opening day at Sunshine Village.

Travelmag Article.

Brits in Banff
By Louise Hudson 3 Oct, 2011, 19:30
History: First of all, the Brits are prolific skiers, with nearly a million of them pouring into mountain resorts worldwide each winter to ski and snowboard. The Brits are responsible for putting the sport into skiing back in the early 1900s, when they borrowed the “wooden stick” means of transport from the Scandinavians and turned it into a fun pursuit to while away winters in Switzerland. In 1903 Brit skier, Sir Henry Lunn established the first packaged ski holidays under the Public Schools Alpine Sports Club. He then raised the sport to a competitive level with a downhill ski race in Crans-Montana, Switzerland. After founding the Kandahar Ski Club in Mürren in 1924, Lunn went on to organize both downhill and slalom events at the 1928 Arlberg-Kandahar open international alpine skiing competition, the precursor to international racing. Read the rest of the article here: http://travelmag.co.uk/?p=5149