Work With Us

You'll co-lead day courses and multi-day trips across Georgian Bay, Tobermory, Algonquin and Lake Superior — nervous first-timers through to paddlers pushing into rough water.

You'll learn to teach the way we teach: inclusive, evidence-based, consent-based progression instead of "watch me, now you do it."

What we can't teach is a passion for the outdoors or the desire to be an educator. Bring us those and we'll give you the room to become an outdoor professional.

What you need

• Current Wilderness First Aid
• Class G licence, and willing to tow — or to learn
• Comfortable on the water. We assess this ourselves, and no paddling certifications are required
• Available weekends and variable schedules through the season

Helpful, not required

• Outdoor education diploma or degree
• Experience guiding, instructing, or running camp programs

Be ready for the pace

The summer season is busy. We paddle a lot and we prepare a lot, and it can be intense. That's the job, and we'd rather you knew before you applied than in week three.

What happens after the season

We're looking for someone who wants to be a big part of the team. We want you to be successful and to come back. We hold an end-of-year meeting to talk through your goals and your pathway to returning for many more seasons.

Some guides come back and move toward senior instructor and instructor trainer certification with our support. We hold instructor-trainer credentials with both Paddle Canada and ORCKA, so that's a pathway we can actually deliver, and have delivered many times. Some do one strong season and go and do something else. Both are fine, and neither is held against you.

There are very few twelve-month sea kayaking jobs in Canada. This is one of them. You'd own our touring and expedition programs outright, working alongside our head coach and program manager for education, who owns the instructional side. Two verticals, two people who run them.

In season you lead expeditions. You're the senior on-water decision-maker on the trips you run, and you mentor our guides. Real autonomy over how the programs work — you'll build trip plans directly with the owner. You'd be running a business unit that operates in both Ontario and Nova Scotia.

Off season you work on emergency response plans, routes, guiding resources, permits and season planning, three days a week from October to April. That half of the year is the part almost nobody else offers, and it's what makes this a career rather than a recurring summer.

This is for someone already leading their own trips who has hit the ceiling of what seasonal work can give them — good at this, wanting to get better, with nowhere obvious to go next.

What you'd bring

• Current Paddle Canada and/or ORCKA instructor certification, Level 2 or above
• Several seasons leading courses or multi-day trips
• Wilderness First Aid or higher
• Class G licence, comfortable towing
• Instructor trainer certification, or the appetite for it. An asset, not a requirement

Why us

We hold instructor-trainer credentials with both Paddle Canada and ORCKA, publish our own coaching material, and are the Canadian importer for Valley and Rockpool. We teach from evidence rather than tradition. If you've spent years being told "this is how it's done" with no reason attached, you'll find this a different room.

The work is fitting paddlers to boats, giving gear advice that's honest rather than commission-driven, running rentals and outfitting, keeping stock straight, and being the person who knows what's actually on the shelf. We're the Canadian importer for Valley and Rockpool, so you'd be handling the best sea kayaks made and would need to learn them properly.

You don't need to be a paddler, though it helps. You need to be genuinely useful to someone who's confused and about to spend four thousand dollars, and honest when the cheaper thing is the right thing. Shop experience of any kind — outdoor, bike, ski — translates well.