All opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of Novo Nordisk
So this past Christmas, I decided to go downhill skiing. I’ve gotten away from the sport for a few years, and felt it was time for a reintroduction. The slopes are full of older skiers, so I know skiing is something I should be able to keep doing for a good while longer, as long as I don’t get too rusty. Also as long as my knees hold out. And to get back into it I figured a trip to Silver Star in British Columbia would be ideal. I last visited this ski area over ten years ago, but remembered being very impressed by the slopes, the snow, the people and the facilities.
I booked a trip and that was my first hint of an Aussie connection. Everyone I spoke to on the phone had that distinctive twang that’s mangled in so many Outback Steakhouse commercials. When I arrived on the 21st of December, almost every Silver Star employee I met had come from Down Under.
This was curious. So I asked around and learned about the Australian rite-of-passage of taking a year off after high school or college and going somewhere outside Australia to work for a year or two and see something of the world. Quite a refreshing change from how travel and experiences are sometimes viewed in the US. So now I knew why there’s a supply of Aussies in Canada, but not why they ended up there, at Silver Star. This seemed like a topic worth exploring because it’s a great example of finding synergies in the interconnected world: ski areas have a need for seasonal labor, and the Australians want a chance to see the world, which means finding a place to work and explore for a year or two. Essentially, to use an analogy I’ve borrowed before from baseball, finding underappreciated or unknown assets and using them to build value.
A quick email to Doug Chimuk, the Silver Star Marketing Projects Coordinator got me in touch with Ian Grant, the CEO of Silver Star and an Australian expat himself. He very kindly agreed to answer some questions via email and I’ve excerpted his responses below:
It would be very difficult to run our business without these seasonal workers. Fortunately there is world-wide interest in working for a couple of seasons in a Canadian ski resort where the snow is plentiful and of amazing quality. The powder snow here as you know, is incredibly dry ….”champagne powder”. We receive typically over 7 metres of snow per year between November and April.
An increasing number of seasonal workers are returning for a second season. They will often travel to another part of the country to work in summer and return to Silver Star for winter. Some stay on to work in the resort when we open for mountain biking in June until the end of September. Others will work in the valley, 20 minutes away, in the golf resorts, the wineries or other tourism activities. There’s always work for good people with the right attitude. We of course like returning staff because they become the junior leaders immediately…they have been trained and they have experience.
Our guests come from all over the world. The biggest group come from Canada, particularly BC and Alberta. The next biggest group is from Australia. Australians are great travelers and seem to like Canada for the obvious reasons…no language issues, it’s a beautiful country in Summer and Winter, they feel safe. Many visit the resorts here because their kids and friends are working here. Many come just because the skiing is so good. Resorts like Silver Star seem to be popular because the temperature is relatively mild…typically around minus 5 and because the snow is so dry (the valley is in a semi-arid zone, with the moisture being drawn out as the air crosses the coastal mountains).
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So there you have it. Discussing the Aussie pipeline with Ian Grant, it was clear how valuable this program has been for the ski areas, and based on my interactions with the very good-natured people working at the resort, seemed to be a great benefit to them as well. I couldn’t help but contrast the attitude here to the US, which currently has far fewer such exchange programs set up with foreign governments and has a somewhat less, uhm, open attitude towards people from other countries coming to work in the US. Which is a shame. The world in so many ways is shrinking and growing increasingly international, and from where I stand it’s something I wish we in the US would embrace.
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