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Available dates:
Planning for Spring/Summer 2022 is a bit confused right now with the coronavirus affecting all our lives. Please feel free to contact us and we will discuss possibilities based on government health guidelines in effect at that time.
Stay well, travel safe!
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Welcome to our little slice of heaven! Julie and I (Pete) are slowly renovating our house and landscaping the 6 acre garden to make this (early) retirement home the place of our dreams. Along with our Alaskan Sled Dog, Loki, Siberian Husky Layka, and Mario and Negan, the cats, we would like to invite you to join us for a summer in the shadow of the Canadian Rocky Mountains.
We are located 7.5 km south of the town of Golden with the Rockies a stone's throw to the east and the Purcell Range of the Columbia Mountains just across the valley. For runners and mountain bikers we are in the perfect location - 500 m from the Mountain Shadows trail system and 4 km from Moonraker Trail system. With five National Parks within an hour of our front door Workawayers have access to some of the world's best hiking. We are both active hikers and would love to show you 'the neighborhood'. Also of note, the last three summers have seen a local project putting a number of sport climbs (~30?) basically overlooking our back yard!
Our big projects this year are fourfold:
1) Finishing the exterior of the house and barn; mainly wood siding repairs and staining - nearly complete.
2) Progressing on fence and outdoor living space construction - too much to finish this year!
3) Continuing with our landscaping and organic vegetable growing - lots of 'yard tidying' and keeping an eye on the veg patch.
4) Building a second tiny home - foundation going in November 2020.
Julie has some, limited French, German and Dutch understanding, and Pete knows both English and Canadian fluently!
We are aware that you are in Canada to see the sights and have some fun - and we will do the best we can to make sure that your stay is super enjoyable! With this in mind, the '5 days of 5 hours work per week' will be very fluid and weather dependent - the better the weather, the less likely we are to be doing the work, and the more likely we are to be out on the trails.
We are not in the town of Golden itself! We do have two vehicles so we can assist with your 'local' travels, but cannot act as 'taxi service'. When we say 'local' we mean we are happy to take you on our hiking trips up to three hours drive away!Types of help and learning opportunities
Help with Eco Projects
Gardening
DIY and building projects
Creating/ Cooking family meals
General Maintenance
Cultural exchange and learning opportunities
Peter is a professional interpretive guide and would love to share his knowledge of the area with workawayers. Julie and Peter are also developing their professional photography portfolios and would love to share their knowledge of the best of the Rockies and area with likeminded artists. Julie also does acrylic and watercolour painting . . .
As a retired university lecturer, Peter loves to research and teach - if the workawayer has an artistic, cultural or natural history project they are working on Pete would love to get involved and assist in anyway he can.
Julie's academic background is in garden design and can teach workawayers about both local gardening and the plants native to our region.Help
Most of our needs are for people who are happy to get their hands dirty and don't mind a bit of manual work:
Finishing touches on a really big, three-level, barbecue deck
Completing build on second tiny house
For artistic workers - inspire us and we might follow your lead building garden 'sculptures'!
Planting perennial plants to naturalize our pasture into wildlife/insect forage meadows
Planting/maintaining organic vegetable garden
Tidying deadfall from property onto bonfire pile - having barbecue and drinks around the bonfire!
Repairing barn (pine) siding with rough fir battens and cedar shakes
Repairing/building fences
Carpentry skills are an asset, but not a necessity.
Vehicle an asset, but not a necessity.Languages spoken
English: Fluent
German: Beginner
French: Beginner
Dutch: BeginnerAccommodation
Workawayers will have their own bedroom (queensize bed, two wardrobes - see photo) in the lower level of the house. They will have their own full bathroom (see photo) and will share laundry facilities. The lower level 'office' has been converted into a media room for our workawayers if they desire a little 'alone time'.
We have built a small 'crossfit' type gym with both indoor and outdoor components for those who wish to maintain their training fitness . . . just finished a 15 square meter bouldering wall in the gym as well!
Couples preferred. If two 'friends', we do have a second guest bedroom on the main floor, but we would rather keep that room available for visiting friends - however, I am sure we can work something out.
Julie and I are both gluten and dairy free (medical not 'fashion' reasons) so we need to be very careful in the kitchen. We envision sharing the shopping/cooking/washing up duties but are happy to work out other, preferred, kitchen arrangements.What else ...
Golden is
~3 hours west of Calgary
~1.5 hours west of Banff
~8 hours east of Vancouver
Golden has a great outdoor community and we can help workawayers find likeminded locals to share their outdoor pastimes - running, hiking, climbing, mountain biking.A little more information
Internet access
Limited internet access
We have pets
We are smokers
Can host families
Space for parking camper vans
Lots of space to park and 'level up'!
How many Workawayers can stay?
Two
Hours expected
Maximum 4-5 hours a day, 5 days a week
Feedback (16)
Both were very willing and eager to try new things and were not afraid to get their hands dirty when the work required it. I (Peter) had a few 'arts & sciences' projects on the go and Camille and Alex jumped… read more
Golden is such a nice place to stay, and we can assure you… read more
We assisted them with light house renovations, house painting, deck building, building their cabin and walk their cute dogs Layka and Loki. They taught us many new skills while being there and were happy to let us have a go at anything we felt comfortable with, without throwing us… read more
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Both were very willing and eager to try new things and were not afraid to get their hands dirty when the work required it. I (Peter) had a few 'arts & sciences' projects on the go and Camille and Alex jumped… read more
Golden is such a nice place to stay, and we can assure you… read more
We assisted them with light house renovations, house painting, deck building, building their cabin and walk their cute dogs Layka and Loki. They taught us many new skills while being there and were happy to let us have a go at anything we felt comfortable with, without throwing us… read more
It is lovely to walk around the property and look at all the projects they put finishing touches on for us.… read more
They have created a beautiful home nestled in the mountains of Golden, have lots of exciting projects on the go to get involved in and we rarely had… read more
Hannah and Zak were absolutely amazing guests to have around the homestead. Arriving in the midst of Covid they had self-isolated locally before coming to join us and were incredibly conscientious about staying isolated while staying with us. The two of them kept us entertained with board and card games (even making a Golden-Covid… read more
The "wow they did a lot" includes:
exterior siding and trim on the new mudroom extension; dry-walling the interior of the new mudroom extension;… read more
Their work on Mont Melo (the dog playground) was an instant… read more
We worked in the garden and in the new entrance of the house. We never worked more than 5 hours and work was very rewarding as we could see the… read more
Dan's hard landscaping skills were an absolute gift - his precision cuts when saddling and notching the beams for the pergola are a thing to behold. And his gentle patience when teaching both Jess and Baxter in the use of the power saws and other tools was a pleasure to… read more
From day one it has been a pleasure spending time with Pete, he made us feel at home and he always tried to explain anything related with the area. We had very… read more
Most of our work together was actually helping an older friend make her garden more 'elderly friendly' and Tabea and Florian put in some very long, heavy days on the project - and then wanted to do more at my place as… read more
The time we… read more
Agata was very self-motivated and always ready to get going on projects with Julie or myself and Kuba was always eager to know the 'why' of a project or the 'why' of how we were doing things a… read more
Matilda is a very gifted musician and has a voice that is… read more
We enjoyed watering the garden, cladding the rear elevation and creating a tree… read more
They both brought very diverse skill sets with them and were also very good 'students', learning to use various tools… read more
Pete, Julie, Loki, Mario, Daisy and all the gophers are very kind and welcoming! =D We directly felt at home ;)
We realized many different kind of work during our stay: gardening, construction, design, hike with the dog ... There is always something to do so you can be bored of this place. =D
In addition, the… read more
Her work ethic was great and her attention to detail and willingness… read more
We… read more
They both were extremely welcoming and I instantly felt comfortable in their home; it was a very relaxing environment and I felt completely at ease. They clearly… read more
Nevertheless, we hope we could help you guys out by doing some garden work and varnishing the doors.
Beyond… read more
We confess to… read more
We confess to… read more