Home sweet home

We have arrived! After two months of travel we are excited to stay put for five months in the beautiful Lake Louise!

I’ve tossed around the word ‘home’ a lot because home is wherever we are together.

But now we are very excited to have a more permanent 'home' for a few months especially over the Christmas and New Year period.

When we started planning our working holiday to Canada and the sights we wanted to see, Lake Louise and its iconic blue lake it is named after was at the top of the list.

Never did I think we would not only live here but work in one of the town’s most prestigious and respected hotels.

Yesterday we moved into our staff accommodation, an apartment that we share with three other singles. We have our own double room with shared kitchen and living spaces.

And today I started my first shift as a dining room hostess.

It's all very different to the past four months living from week to week not knowing where you'll be staying until the night before usually. Nomadic life has its excitements and we will continue to bounce around after the ski season. For the moment staying put has its excitements also. Meeting new people, time to make friendships, new skills and people to spend Christmas with.

We first visited Lake Louise two weeks ago. I had this image in my head of this crystal clear lake of stunning blue hues. We drove up to the tourist parking and I excitedly bounced from the car to begin the short walk through snow with a giddy grin on my face... we stand at the lake's edge and with a moment of disappointment I realise... it's frozen... and covered in snow! It's not blue at all! But still beautiful. We will be here in spring so as the ice melts I'll get my moment.

The Lake Louise village itself is quite small, catering mainly to tourists.

What we didn't realise was that winter is not the busy season in Lake Louise and surrounding areas. Summer is. So right now it is not very busy at all and won't pick up until sometime around the New Year.

Now that we've travelled around Alberta some more we can see why summer would be more attractive. It is very hard to get around in general as the snow covered roads and make many areas in accessible.

In summer there are numerous hiking trails and waterfalls to see, plenty of glorious camping spots and adventure activities such as zip lining, ATV tours, horse riding, biking, mountaineering and climbing as well as boating and other water sports.

In terms of how we got jobs, given the quiet season, was all to do with putting ourselves in the right place at the right time and having the willingness to walk into resorts/hotels and other places of possible employment and ask to speak with the manager or person involved in hiring.

Almost everywhere we went, people were surprised that we had made the effort to personally introduce ourselves. Even though almost all resorts and hotels require an online application we thought there would still be a steady stream of people through the front doors, but no.

In the end we were very lucky to both get jobs in the same place and we are so appreciative of the opportunity.

Quick tips that I think helped us in an environment of employment uncertainty.

Ask around!

Strike up conversations with your servers, retail workers, people on ski lifts, people in the supermarket and anyone who's already working. They're the ones that know where to go and who to ask.

Apply online but also go in person.

Something as simple as seeing your face can give your resume an edge in the pile.

Change and update your resume two, three, four times.

After being told at one company that there was no work available we asked how we could improve our resumes and they were happy to give us some pointers (for me it was putting my hospitality experience at the top of my job history instead of page two!) We also edited our cover letters to be suitable for each job criteria.

Ask for the manager's name and use it.

Don't be discouraged when rejected

After sitting a one hour personality test I was told that, although I had several years hospitality experience and have worked more recently as a journalist, I would suit a role behind a computer and answering phones because, apparently, according to the test, I wouldn't have the communications skills to deal with and resolve a customer conflict. Not going to lie it was disheartening and frankly poor communication on their part!

Present yourself well

This doesn't mean wearing your best attire, it's more about your manner, be polite, speak well of the establishment you wish to work and have a positive attitude :-).

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