School’s out this summer for Paul Kane’s Abigail Kemp, and like many students, she’s got a summer job.
But she won’t be serving tables or flipping burgers. Instead, she’ll be braving buzzing bees as a beekeeper up in High Prairie.
Kemp says she got into beekeeping through her aunt and had her first taste of it last summer. She’ll be spending this summer clad in a beekeeper’s suit as she lifts 40-pound hive boxes and spins the honey out of them with a centrifuge.
“It was cool to see how they make the honey and where our honey actually comes from,” she said, and pretty neat to see all those bees.
It’s summer job season for many students in St. Albert. The Gazette reached out earlier this month to find students with less-typical summer occupations.
Bellerose Composite off-campus co-ordinator Bill Turnham estimated that about 20 per cent of his school’s students had summer jobs in any given year. Some need the money for rent or car insurance, while others seek experience or high-school credit through work experience or registered apprenticeship programs.
While many students get jobs at stores, golf courses or restaurants, Turner said some seek out apprenticeships as electricians or carpenters, and he knew of at least one who was a junior forest ranger.
“It’s all over the map,” Turnham said.
Wrangling birds, beasts, kids
Former St. Albert resident and NAIT biology student Kelly Musgrove has a job studying house wrens out at the Beaverhill Bird Observatory.
“I’m very much interested in wildlife conservation,” she said, and this gig was flexible enough to fit in with her jobs with Alberta Transportation (highway maintenance) and Tommy Gun’s Barbershop (receptionist). She’ll also get to publish a scientific paper on her research at the summer’s end, which is a big deal for a new scientist.
Musgrove said her bird job involves tracking house wrens in 50 nest boxes scattered around Beaverhill Lake. The wrens aren’t too aggressive, but do make their annoyance audible when you peek inside their homes. She’s also learned not to stand directly in front of an entrance to a nest box, as doing so can result in a bird charging right at you.
Musgrove said she’s had many amazing wildlife encounters as part of this job, including her first live wild skunk and her first goldeneye in a nest box. A few weeks ago, she saw her first house wrens hatch.
“It actually took my breath away for a moment,” she said.
“It was so wonderful to have some small part of that.”
MacEwan University student and St. Albert resident Kendra Treichel is spending her second summer working for the WILDNorth animal rehabilitation centre in Edmonton. She hopes to work in animal conservation and with sharks post-graduation, and saw this job as a chance to get some experience.
Treichel said she started last year as a volunteer animal care intern.
“About 80 per cent of our intake is birds,” she said, and she spent most of last summer feeding baby ones.
“It was adorable but also very loud.”
This year, she volunteers in the animal care room but also has a paid job planning and running the group’s summer camps, which gives her a chance to teach kids about wildlife.
Odd jobs and where to find them
Turnham said the best time to find a summer student job was probably back in April or May, as that’s when most of them are posted. If you’re still looking, you’ll need to be flexible, as you may need to fill in for random shifts, and persistent, following up with employers to keep your résumé at the top of their minds.
Talk to your peers and teachers if you want more unusual jobs, and take what you can get, said Treichel – it’s a competitive market, and those volunteer jobs can lead to paid ones later.
“It is hard work, but it will pay off.”
