Dream Job Profile

Lisa Davey - Training and Development Coordinator

Banff Services Industry Network

BanffLife: Let us have it Lisa, tell us all about yourself?

Thinking back to my first season living and working in Banff will forever make me smile. I will try to describe to you my story of how I came to live here and why I stay.

I think it must have been a feeling that was always stirring inside me, waiting for the right surroundings to come to life that brought me to the Rockies. I didn’t realize at the time how much my mind was starving and the more I look back, the more I see what I was lacking.

After a 3 hour drive from Sherwood Park to Calgary to catch The Tea Party playing at the Republic, followed by the excitement of meeting the band after the show seemed like a great start to my journey to Banff. Things were looking good. I arrived in Banff the next night. First things first… After dropping my stuff off at the friend’s place, where I would end up couch surfing for the next 2 months, I took $20 bucks out of the only $200 bucks I had and bought myself a case of beer. I sit back satisfied with my journey so far and drink my beer. It tastes good.

It’s 6:50 in the morning and I’m bloody freezing. It’s -40 and I am standing in the dark waiting for a bus up to Sunshine Village to start my new job as a cashier in the Daylodge. The warmth of my Pine Woods apartment feels forever GONE! To this day I often bike past where the Pine Woods apartments used to be and remember how I was then and where I am now.  Locals may remember this building as the ghetto, that dive or remember the fire that consumed it mysteriously and left it to ashes.

In my first two months I ended up moving into staff accomm at Sunshine later getting a transfer to become a lifty. From the sandwich line… to the sunny outdoor life of a lifty… things were looking up!

My next few months were filled with an array of snowboarding and hanging out with friends. During this time I got to know so many international travelers. Young people from Australia and the UK who were seeing the world. It really opened my eyes and would completely change the course of my life!

As my first Sunshine season came to an end I got to feel for the first time, and by far not the last, what it is like to live in Banff. People come and people go… but as a fresh faced new Banffite at the time, I knew I would see them all again! Needless to say I never saw most of them again but just the one memory of my friend Tasha falling over backwards on a bar stool in Brunos was worth the goodbyes alone!  

A few years had passed and so much happened. My next season, I went home to Edmonton just so I could feel that nagging feeling again and remember why I needed to live in the Rockies. If you ask most long term locals… they have all done the same thing. Went home, felt lost and moved back! I got my lifty job back and was lovin life again!

Now that I knew I wasn’t going home I started to think, “What do I want to do in Banff?”. I ended up volunteering my time in the Human Resources Department at Sunshine Village and the transient environment., that was so harsh to me my first season with all the goodbyes, ended up being a tool for progressing! Someone left and I slipped into a position… that’s how it happens… that’s Banff. With hard work I continued to work at Sunshine in this department for another 4 years and loved it! I had found my niche.

I always kept it prevalent in my mind the need to travel and the yearning to find out more! Over the course of 4 years I ended up traveling to Ireland, Scotland, England, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam between stints working at Sunshine. When I returned from a trip to Australia, I decided to do something new in Banff. I applied for a position with the Banff Service Industry Network and because of my good references from my other jobs in Banff like Sunshine, the Downtown Keg a stint at Safeway… I landed the job! I never burned bridges; I worked hard and really did succeed in living a life where I like getting up in the morning for work. Not to mention the unbelievable playground that is around me! I timed it in the winter and I can be at my desk typing, and in only 16 minutes, be on the top of a mountain with my snowboard strapped on looking down my first run of the day! Awesome.

My new job allows me to promote healthy lifestyles for young adults and promote outdoor pursuits. I also had the opportunity to help design this website and other cool projects! It is so rewarding to get new Banffites pumped up to be in this unique place.

You may not think it now, but Banff is a great place to live and have a career. After seven years here, I am so happy to call this valley home. There is so much opportunity in this town… all a person has to do is SEE IT!

BanffLife:  Thanks Lisa!