It is so beautiful here! We are surrounded by mountains which are covered in snowy pine trees. Our taxi driver Barrie was telling us all about the different type of trees that survive the winter, the fir tree (which are the ones all around us), the sprooce tree (looks similar to the fir tree but lives in swampy areas), the needle tree (which loses its needles during winter but is still very alive) and the pine tree which are dying out due to the pine beetle! Taxi ride here cost $62 but tips are big here and Barrie told us all about the mountain so we gave him $70. He was very grateful.
Barrie took us to check in (glad he knows his way around) and Aaron and I got our keys and paperwork and then Barrie took us to our staff housing. They were smaller than I thought considering how many people must be working on the mountain. There were only two building, Paradise and Monument. Aaron and I are in Monument, top floor (level 4). There aren't any lifts so getting up was a mission with our 7 bags! Thankfully Rich from Ledes, England helped us with our stuff. We have another four people in our loft so far - Tobias and Jonathon (the Swedish guys) and Patrick and Emmett (the Irish guys). The Irish guys are moving out as they are waiting for their bathroom to be renovated. I don't know when that will be so we don't know who the other four people are that we will be spending the season with.
We then went to Employee Experience to meet Corinna Wenger and fill out paperwork for our jobs i.e. tax forms, direct deposit forms, SIN details, etc. We also got our ski passes! And turns out we get free lessons which I will definitely be taking advantage of!
We went for a walk around to find out where we will be working and Wildfire restaurant is in the upper part of the mountain along with the T-Bar, Picnic Deli, the gym, the chair lifts, Great Hall and a few other things. We were struggling to find the Maintenance office but a guy from the Snow making team called the team who drove over and picked Aaron up. They wanted him to start right away but we had groceries and more shopping to do in Invermere. So Aaron started today (Sunday) instead of Monday. Started at 7am! with Robert who I think is the team lead? Aaron's responsibilities are shovelling snow off the pathways and stairs, emptying bins and.... i will have to get back to you if he has more duties.. I am glad I will be working in a heated venue that's for sure!
The Christmas festival was on last night down in Invermere which we missed but saw a lot of cars done up for the event. We managed to hitchhike down there! Exciting.. Andrea who helped us set up our bank accounts at Bank of Montreal said its very common that people hitch hike down and the locals are more than happy to pick us up as they know we have had a lot of background checks done to get the jobs on the mountain. We did our groceries, bought some more winter gear and found an AMAZING bakery! We also found a second hand shop, Thrift, where I bought a scarf for $1.50! Bargain! We also got really close to some deer!!
I am going to head up to the resort (we are about a 10-15min walk away) tomorrow to meet the Wildfire coordinator and found out what my shifts are and what I need to be doing. Hopefully she doesn't ask me to start right away like Aaron's crew did!
My day in Invermere was very long! We caught the bus at 7:40 and started with breakfast at Huckleberries. It is so like the movies with the lady in her apron and big frizzy hair bringing the coffee out with her strong accent. I had eggs benedict and the hollandaise sauce was see through and kinda gross but I still devoured it. We managed to chill out there until 10:30 then we made our way up the hill into 'Downtown' which is pretty much one street with everything on it. We made our way down the left side towards the end of the street where Quality Bakery is which is AMAZING! We had lunch there and a nice little treat as well :)
