Working as a Canoe Guide is a great option for a summer seasonal job. As a canoe guide you can spend your days on rivers, lakes, and oceans, surrounded by the beauty of the great outdoors while taking people out on single day excursions or leading multi-day/overnight trips. You do not need a ton of experience for this job and you can find this summer work opportunity in almost every state across the USA. To understand what working as a canoe guide is really like, I interviewed my friend Meara, who has experience working as a single day and multi-day canoe guide for two different companies.
Photo Credits: WesternCanoeKayak
What is your experience working as a Canoe Guide?
I started off canoe guiding for the Appalachian Mountain Club in New Hampshire, pretty far up into the mountains. It's right on the Appalachian Trail, kind of in the middle of nowhere. I did multi-day canoe trips with two person canoes. That was mainly with teenagers and we went out for trips up to 20 days long. It was canoeing on a river.
I really liked that so [when the season was over] I was looking for other jobs and I found a canoe job in Alaska with Liquid Alaska. [It was in] Juno. It’s a really small town that’s totally surround by massive amounts of wilderness and there are no roads that go in and out of Juno so you need to take a boat there. Cruise ships are constantly coming in so there's tons of people. That was totally different because that was [single day trips with] 40 foot long canoes that went up to glaciers on a lake.
What experience or qualifications do you need be a Canoe Guide?
You don’t really need experience [to be a canoe guide]. It definitely helped to have guide and canoe experience, because I got to take out more solo trips than other guides who didn’t have past experience. But otherwise you were just kind of behind if you didn’t have past experience. They did required me to have my WFR (Wilderness First Responser certification). I didn’t need that for the [first] job though, which was weird.
How did you find these jobs?
CoolWorks! It’s the best.
What was training like?
For [overnight trips with] the Appalachian Mountain Club it was two weeks [of training]. Mainly learning leadership skills and how to handle different types of situations, because teenagers can bring up a lot of different behavioral problems and you get all sorts of issues. Then we did about a week of learning different canoe strokes, learning how to read a map, hiking a bunch of different areas so that we knew what the terrain was like, learning get to know you games, and things like that.
[For day trips] with Liquid Alaska we spent probably three days studying and talking about all of the narrative type things we talk about [during the tours]… plants and history and stuff like that. Then I had to do a cold water training course to get certified in those rescues and I had to learn how to steer a 40 foot long canoe. Since it’s on a glacier, and you get specific weather patterns for glacial lakes, you have to learn all these different weather patters, how to read them, and how to steer in different kinds of wind.
Photo Credits: SaiKrishna Saketh Yellapragada
What’s a day in the life like for a multi-day/overnight Canoe Guide?
You would usually do all of your prep the day before [the trip]… preparing all of your meals, getting gear ready, planning your route… The kids would get there at 8:00am and we would set the gear out and make sure everything fits. [It was different groups every time.] They would come for between 3 and 20 days, then they would go home and the next group of kids would come in. We provide all the gear but each of them had to carry their own backpack full of stuff. A lot of them could not handle it, so I ended up carrying [sometimes] four people’s worth of stuff in my backpack if we were hiking.
It was always two [guides per trip] because they were such long trips and when you have 12 teenagers you need 2 people. We would usually do half backpacking, half canoeing. So we would backpack for [about] 10 days, then a van meets you to switch out all your gear, pick up the canoes, they drop you at the top of the river, and you canoe down in two person canoes for 10 days.
Most days [during the trip] I'd wake up all the kids and get two of them started on breakfast. We would eat, pack up the canoes, and start paddling by 8:00am. Usually we'd paddle for a few hours, tie the canoes together for lunch, and just float for a while. We would sing, swim songs, and race. [We did] a total of 15-20 miles a day. Then we'd find a good spot by the water, set up camp... we just camped along the river bed at already established camp grounds... eat dinner, make a fire, hang out, and do it all again the next day! Sometimes we had to do lessons on the history of the river, or LNT, or talk about the ecosystems we were going through.
What’s a day in the life like for a Canoe Guide during a single day trip?
Day trips with Liquid Alaska were usually 10 hour days. During peak season we sometimes [worked] seven days a week. [We could start our days] at any time, it was always dependent on when the cruise ships came in.
First stop is to grab all of your gear; backpack, first aid kit, helmet. Then we'd pick up our vans. One is a passenger van and one is a gear van. You load all the gear for all the guests into the gear van; lifejackets, paddles, gloves, helmets, and boots. [Lastly] we would pick up the canoes and drop them off at the lake. The 40 foot canoes could hold 14 guests and 2 guides. We also had a 30 foot canoe that held 10-12 guest. Then one person would set up our little staging area and the next person would go pick up all the guests and do the tour.
My general responsibility was to pick up the people...mainly from the cruise terminal because most people visiting Juno were on cruises... I’d get them all geared up, do a safety talk, and take them out for an hour long canoe across the lake. I’d either be in the front of the canoe or back of the canoe steering or setting the pace. I would talk about all kinds of stuff as we were paddling; the history of Juno, plants and animals in the area, stories, jokes… basically we just talked for an hour straight and people listened as they paddled. Then we’d get out of the canoe, pull it up on the shore, and I’d take them onto the glacier. There, I would talk about rocks and glacier facts. We’d get back in the canoe and paddle back. Then I’d [drive] the people back. Once you finish the tour you take all the gear back, wash it off, and put it away.
Photo Credits: Alan Bishop
Do you prefer to take out day trips or overnights?
I like them both. I’m going back to overnight trips this summer. I don’t want to do overnight all year round but for half the year I think overnight trips are a lot of fun. I liked being out for multiple days at a time. But being in Alaska and seeing the glaciers every day was the coolest thing ever. I loved the location in Alaska but I liked the actual work in New Hampshire better.
What was the pay like? Did you make a lot in tips?
[For the overnight trips] I think I was getting paid 14/hour. And they capped you at around 12 hours a day, even though you are with [the kids] 24 hours a day. It was a ripoff but I was still able to make so much money because housing and food was $50 a month and I didn’t buy anything while I was there. There were no tips because it was [working with] teenagers.
[With day trips for the other company] we got paid 18/hour but we made a lot in tips. You’re walking away with usually $200 in tips a day. Sometimes that was [split between two guides], sometimes that’s what I got on my own.
How did housing and food work?
With the Appalachian Mountain Club food and housing were provided [at a low fee]. It was super cheap, like $50 a month. [When not on trips] housing was bunkhouse style. I got my own room because there was so few people. [During the trips] we just camped along the river bed in tents on already established camp grounds and private property.
Then, with Liquid Alaska, they rented two houses and there were 4 people in each house. We each got our own room, [but there was] no food provided. Once you complete the season they buy your travel back home.
What’s it like working with adults versus kids/teens?
Honestly they were a lot more similar than I was expecting. Adults and teenagers take directions very similarly… they are both not great at taking directions. The teenagers were more fun because I could play lots of games with them but the adults were easier to hold a conversation with. I used a lot of strategies with adults that I did with teenagers. Like, with teenagers if they start talking about inappropriate things I’d just go, “wait a second, what’s your favorite pizza topping”… and then we’d get in an argument about that. I would use the same thing on the adults and they would still argue about it.
Photo Credits: Laura Martin
What are the biggest perks of being a Canoe Guide?
Being outside every single day and getting to see new things. Like, standing in front of a glacier... it’s the coolest thing ever and I got to do that every single day. I also got to see other people walking up and seeing a glacier for the very first time. It’s really cool to see them experience that once and a lifetime thing. And it’s just so fun. I pretty much always have fun. It comes easily when you are actually out there.
What are some worries or dangers of the job?
I think the number one thing is choosing the right trip for someone that they can actually make it through. You never know until you actually meet [someone] what they are going to be able to do [physically and mentally]. You think you have a trip planned out in your mind and you meet them and they say, “I need something totally flat.” And you get out there and they can only go for like 20 minutes. You are constantly changing your plans and making sure that you get them out of there alive, not injured, and having had a good time.
You worry about different things, like which way the wind is going, what you’re having for dinner and how you’re going to cook it… instead of worrying about… well, whatever you do at other jobs where you’re not outside every day. You worry about much more primal things.
What are some downsides of the job?
I don’t know. There is not a ton of frustrations. Being a guide is a pretty stress free job until something goes wrong. Once something goes wrong it’s horrible, but up until that point it’s all pretty chill. I got stuck in a hurricane one time. It was raining the hardest I’d ever seen and we were hiking up rivers. We were just on the edge of the hurricane so it wasn’t [as bad as it could have been]. You just have to keep moral up.
The hardest thing when [working with] teenagers is there’s a lot more weird things that happen. One kid would just run off into the woods when I wasn’t looking and I’d have to chase after him. Another kid had diabetes and he didn’t like it when I told him to take his medication… which was my job. I had to convince other kids to tell him to take it and he would listen to them.
Do you need to be physically fit to work as a Canoe Guide?
I think you should definitely be somewhat physically fit. You can’t just jump into canoeing with having no previous experience in the outdoors because it’s tiring. You also get better at it as you go. Like, steering a 40 foot canoe… You have a paddle that's 10 feet tall and weighs 50 lbs. That’s really hard to maneuver. But by the end of the season it feels like nothing. You work your way into it.
When you think of these jobs, you think of the physical demands. Do you think there is a lot of emotional labor too?
Yeah, you definitely feel tired mentally. It’s kind of like having your “customer service voice.” I notice when I’m actually out there, I am a lot more upbeat and peppy than I am in real life. In real life, I am much more mellow.
It’s mentally draining. [Especially when working with kids.] There is absolutely times kids would make me cry because they were so mean. But I am still so happy to be out there every day. I still spent my days off doing whatever activity I [wanted and that was helpful].
Photo Credits: Nick Linnen
What type of gear should you bring for the job?
For overnight trips, I needed all my own stuff. Pretty much every [multi-day] job, requires you to have your own backpacking gear. At least a tent, a sleeping bag, and a backpack. [My single day guide job] didn’t require that I bring any of my own stuff. They even gave me boots, a hat, t-shirt, and everything. We wore XTRATUF boots because we were in glacier water that was 38 degrees. With [my next job] I have to provide a lot of my own boating stuff. I am going to be in a kayak so they want me to bring my own spray skirt, and life jacket, etc…
There’s nothing special [or specific you would generally need]. Everybody has their own gear [they prefer]. I like sun-shirts that have a hood on them. You definitely want quick dry, sun protection [gear].
With this being a summer seasonal job, what do you do for winter work?
Usually I guide in the summer and sometimes the spring and fall. In the winter for the past few years I’ve worked at REI, Carhartt, and Outdoor Research… so still in the outdoor industry but something indoors. This year was my first winter guiding job [working as a cross country ski/snowshoe guide].
Would you do it again?
Absolutely! That's pretty much what I am doing this summer, overnight and day trips.
Any advise to someone applying to work as a Canoe Guide?
A big part of it is that they want to make sure you are good with people. The main thing is that you’re personable because all these other [hard skills] you can learn, but you can’t really learn to be personable as easily. [For example] with this current job, I had never touched a pair of skis in my life and I still got hired here.
[In an interview] talk about your people skills. Having any guide experience helps, and anything you can think of in your personal life [that relates to the job]. Like, if you have ever been in a canoe before, really talk about that.
Conclusion
If you are wondering what it's like to work as a Canoe Guide, hopefully this post gave you some of the answers you were looking for. A huge thank you to Meara for taking the time to provide the details of her experience with the job (and I hope you enjoy the candy). If you have experience as a Canoe Guide, share your take on the job in the comments below!