Help bring a little paradise to life on Vancouver Island, BC , Canada

Detalhes

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  Descrição

  *Winter Housesitting Update*
  
  December 30, 2026–April 30, 2027 · Black Creek, Vancouver Island
  
  We’re looking for a caring, dependable person or couple to make our home their own this winter while we’re away.
  
  This is a little different from our usual Workaway experience. You’ll be living in our family home, caring for our two kittens, Pete and Midnight, and our dog, Lily, while helping look after the home and land.
  
  Our home is a cozy sanctuary, with a wood stove, backyard sauna and outdoor hot bath. We’re hoping to find someone who will deeply appreciate the space, enjoy settling into its quieter winter rhythm, and care for it with warmth and attention.
  
  What the role involves
  
  The heart of this stay is thoughtful care of our animals and home, along with errands and general caretaking. Practical or handy skills would be a welcome bonus, with opportunities to steadily chip away at small projects.
  
  Clear, reliable communication is especially important. John will be in regular contact throughout the winter, and we’re looking for someone comfortable sharing updates, asking questions and letting us know when something needs attention.
  
  We’ll continue to provide our grocery allowance of $120 /person per week. We’ll agree on responsibilities, hours and arrangements for time away together before confirming the stay.
  
  Winter life on the land
  
  This is a shared property and home to our land family. Hartley and Emily will be settling into life with their newborn, and Lesley will be here when she isn’t away in Nunavut.
  
  Our community slows down over winter. There are fewer potlucks and gatherings, and you may be the only Workawayer—or Workaway couple—on the land. Our learning community will still bring life to the property through its twice-weekly school program and monthly farm program.
  
  This stay would suit someone who enjoys independence, nature and a peaceful home base, and who is comfortable with a quieter social season.
  
  Who we’re hoping to welcome
  
  Ideally, we’d welcome a Canadian citizen who can obtain a criminal record check with vulnerable sector screening, allowing us to explore occasional support with the learning community where appropriate. Neither Canadian citizenship nor that screening is a requirement for the housesitting role. Most support will involve errands and caretaking rather than working directly with children.
  
  Above all, we’re looking for someone who loves animals, takes initiative, communicates well and will treat our home with genuine care.
  
  If this sounds like your kind of winter, please tell us about yourself, your availability, your experience with animals and housesitting, and any practical skills you’d enjoy sharing. We’d especially love to hear what draws you to a quiet winter here.
  
  ~
  
  Hey Folks!
  
  Welcome to our community oriented project located in Black Creek on Vancouver Island.
  
  Black Creek is tucked away the North end of the Comox Valley. Between crystal clear streams, mountain lakes and wildflower meadows of the nearby Strathcona range and the beautiful white sand beaches and rain forest on the east coast.
  
  For the past 8 years our family has been invested in making our land useful. Arriving here we asked ourselves, what communities, initiatives and work that informs grassroots level connection and change making deserves our support?
  
  In our answer to that questions we've been living in a small community, sharing the land and load. We've been hosting occasional healing retreats, growing flowers in a small regenerative flower farm and most recently started a nature based alternative learning community for kids k-9.
  
  We're doing all this on 46-acres of forest and field, and (mostly) having a great time doing it :)
  
  Workaway volunteers join us in the flow of daily life — working on building projects, helping care for our kids, tending animals and gardens, splitting firewood, helping with the learning communities volunteer roles and doing errands in town.
  
  Work varies with the season, and creativity is always welcome.
  
  We invite you to explore the best of the area, using our mountain bikes, paddleboards, canoe, camp gear and 4x4 pick up truck. We share meals at a weekly potluck and invite cultural exchange and dialog. We try to host multiple Workaways so there is a sense of community and camaraderie shared between our visiting family.
  
  We're in our third year of Workaway and having a blast doing it. So many great friends and adventures brought to us through this initiative.
  
  Come curious! Leave changed :)
  
  ~
  
  The surrounding area:
  
  This area is spectacularly beautiful and we are well located to access all of it:
  
  Saratoga Beach - epic white sand beach (5 mins), Oyster River - many spots for walks and plunges (5-10 mins), Salmon Point - a gorgeous Ocean-side 5km well maintained path (5 min), Nymph Falls - epic waterfalls and swimming holes (20 mins), Comox Lake - beautiful for walking, hiking and swimming (30 mins), Cumberland - super fun little town with great restaurants, the best ice cream and right beside epic mountain biking and hiking (25 mins), Mount Washington - alpine meadow hiking and camping (25 mins), and so much more!
  
  Length of stay:
  
  Given that many of our Workaways have asked to prolong their stays with us we'd like a minimum of a 3-4 week commitment and generally welcome longer stays. There's a lot to do in this valley and we'll gladly try and help you make the most of your stay.
  
  Groceries:
  
  We will provide some kitchen staples and a weekly allowance for each workaway of around 120$ for groceries
  
  Getting here:
  You can take the ferries and arrive at a bus stop that is a 5 minute drive from our house. There is infrequent public transit that can take you to town that is about a 10 minute bike ride away. We have 5 bikes and a truck available for occasional use. You can tag along for grocery shop runs into town and borrow a vehicle once in a while to go to the mountain, beaches etc and you're welcome to tag along with us when we go.

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  Tipos de ajuda e oportunidades de aprendizado

  Prática de idiomas

  Jardinagem geral

  Projetos DIY criativos

  Ajuda em fazenda

  Cuidar de crianças/atividades criativas

  Criar/cozinhar refeições caseiras

  Ajuda a cuidar da casa

  Manutenção geral
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  Interesses

  

  Cultura

  

  Vida na estrada

  

  Autodesenvolvimento

  

  Filmes e TV

  

  Fazenda

  

  Faça você mesmo

  

  Cuidar de plantas

  

  Música

  

  Jardinagem

  

  Idiomas

  

  Fotografia

  

  Desenho e pintura

  

  Astronomia

  

  Carpintaria

  

  Culinária e comida

  

  Livros

  

  Arte e design

  

  Animais

  

  Esportes aquáticos

  

  Atividades ao ar livre

  

  Caminhada

  

  Ciclismo

  

  Dança

  

  Montanhas

  

  Yoga/bem-estar

  

  Naturaleza

  

  Fitness

  

  Camping

  

  Praia

  

  Esportes de aventura
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  Objetivos de sustentabilidade da ONU que este anfitrião quer atingir

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  O que é isso?
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  Oportunidades de intercâmbio cultural e aprendizado

  Getting back to the land!
  
  Connecting with nature.
  
  Connection with the wisdom of traditional cultures; we sometimes play host to sweatloge and ceremony.
  
  We have a network of very cool folks in this neighbourhood that you can connect with.
  
  We have a great outdoor gym and lots of fun lawn games and do workouts a couple times a week.
  
  We love to cook together and share meals outside.
  
  We have access to amazing outdoor activities: Stand Up paddle boarding, mountain biking, fishing, hiking. Stunning beach 5 minutes away, a beautiful riverside park that you can walk to, alpine meadows, lakes and hiking are a 25 minute drive. 4 funky little towns with lots to explore a 25 min drive away.

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  Projetos que envolvem crianças

  Este projeto pode envolver crianças. Para mais informações, veja aqui nossas diretrizes e dicas.

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  Ajuda

  This would be a 5 hrs/day position.
  
  Chores:
  
  We've got a number of daily and weekly tasks that we'd like support with such as caring for animals, watering gardens and lawn care. We have an abundance of garden and landscaping projects each year that doesn't require skill so much as willingness to learn and move quickly and efficiently.
  
  Projects:
  
  We're thrilled anytime we can play host to a builder, carpenter or trade. Next up? An upgraded workaway outdoor kitchen and lounge area and a Sauna.
  
  Meal Prep:
  
  We've hosted a chef before and loved it. Cooking for big groups to eat all together, filling up the freezer and processing foods from the gardens are all super valuable for us.
  
  Childminding:
  
  We're always stoked to play host to excellent caregivers. So what does this look like?
  
  Creating some structured activities whether it's play, art, cooking or learning. Any Spanish language experience would be great as our kids are learning Spanish as we live in Mexico half of the year.
  
  Julianna loves to be physical, adores active playtime and creativity whether with art, imagination games or exploring outdoors. getting on the bikes and going for a bike ride, playing on the trampoline, making forts, learning basic math, abc's, Spanish practice, art time etc.
  
  A few things we've learned from hosting the last couple years:
  - We love duos or couples!
  - We happily match efforts you make in trying to make your stay with us meaningful, meaning that we notice when you show up on time, and work hard.

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  Idiomas

  Idiomas
  Inglês: Fluente
  Espanhol: Iniciante

  Este anfitrião oferece intercâmbio de idiomas
  We are actively working on Spanish!
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  Acomodação

  We have 3 areas available for work aways to stay.
  
  1. The Barn: is a fully furnished and newly renovated gathering space with living room, bathroom, kitchen and bedroom. This is a space we use for hosting groups but when there are no groups occupying the space we want to open it up to Work-Away.
  
  2. From May-Oct we have two canvas bell tents that are set up for Workaway. Adjacent is a (beautiful) composting toilet (made by a french furniture making Workaway!), hot outdoor shower and camp kitchen (complete with stove, oven, fridge and coffee set up)
  3. RV site: If you have a trailer, camper-van or small RV we have space for your rig in an area close to the composting toilet and ourdoor kitchen.

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  Algo mais...

  We share the land 4 other wonderful people. Between us there's a lot of fun things we can connect you with – we've got a good bit of experience on the island and can direct you towards many sorts of adventures.

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  Mais alguns detalhes

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    Acesso à internet

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    Acesso à internet limitado

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    Temos mascotes

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    Somos fumantes

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    Pode hospedar famílias

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  Pode hospedar nômades digitais

  We installed StarLink internet so our uptime and speed is looking good!

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  Espaço para estacionar campervans

  We've got a couple of suitable areas for campervans

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  Pode aceitar animais

  We've already for 3 dogs on the land so we're not super keen to add more woofs!

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  Quantos Workawayers pode acomodar?

  Mais de 2

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  Meus animais / animais de estimação

  The Miniature Goats and Chickens

  Sonic

  Cota

  Lily

Segurança do site

Converse com Workawayers que já visitaram este anfitrião

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