Working for free accommodation in Port Renfrew

The best thing about travelling without having any concrete plans or obligations is that you have a chance to just take an opportunity when it comes your way. In my case, my flight back to London was supposed to be leaving on 17th August but then, I unexpectedly came across an opportunity to accompany a 3-week tour through Western Canada as a German interpreter in September. I was really keen on this experience but it also meant bridging the three weeks between my original flight date and the tour start. Vancouver is expensive, especially in summer, with hostel beds costing up to 70 CAD (44 GBP / 48 EUR) a night so I started looking into possibilities to help out somewhere in exchange for free accommodation.

During one of my beach days in Vancouver, I had met a lovely couple who were warmly recommending the remote beaches of Port Renfrew on Vancouver Island – so I started my search on this beautiful island only 1.5 hours by ferry from Vancouver. Various websites bring together hosts and travellers that are keen to do a “work-away” as it is sometimes called. I started with Help Exchange because I heard good things about it but there is also WWOOF Canada (short for willing workers on organic farms) and Work Away. The way these sites work is that you need to create an account and pay a small membership fee (in my case with Help Exchange, it was 29 CAD (18.16 GBP / 19.88 EUR) for 2 years) so you can get in touch with potential hosts that advertise their place with pictures and a description. I’d choose places that have good reviews from other travellers which you can also see on the website.

I’m not that much of a farm person as I could just do that back home but I found a wonderful sounding lodge in the remote little town of Port Renfrew, a couple of hours from Victoria at the west coast of Vancouver Island. The Soule Creek Lodge usually has a minimum stay of 3-4 weeks but lucky for me, they’re happy to have me for just under two weeks because they’re really busy. So just a few days later, I’m making my way back to Victoria on Vancouver Island where I’ll meet Jon, one of the two owners, to get a lift to Port Renfrew, which is just about a couple of hours from Victoria.

Before meeting Jon, I have an evening in Victoria to explore this wonderful city a bit more. I was here last year in November but summer is just so much nicer, especially in this part of the world. I walk up to Beacon Hill Park which stretches from downtown to the ocean and come across an outdoor cinema in the park, screening Dirty Dancing tonight. This park is also the only park in British Columbia where you can camp, for free! Then I make my way up to Chinatown past the beautifully lit BC Legislature, the parliament of British Columbia, to have a glance through the locked gate of Fan Tan alley, the narrowest street in North America. Back at the lovely Ocean Island Inn Backpackers, a great hostel which I can highly recommend as it’s bright, clean, has separate bathrooms and showers as well as a bar and provides breakfast and (vegan) dinner included in the relatively inexpensive room rate (35 CAD / 21.96 GBP / 24.01 EUR), I claim my free cocktail and meet a fellow German who joins me for a few pints at the Bard & Banker Pub on Government Street.

Beacon Hill Park
Beacon Hill Park
Outdoor cinema setting up at Beacon Hill
Beacon Hill Park
Beach near Beacon Hill Park
Victoria, BC Legislative Building
Fan Tan Alley, closed by night

Jon’s picking me up at the hostel bright and early the next morning. He just got a coffee for me and we’re making our way to Port Renfrew along the windy highway number 14. It’s a very hilly terrain, along the coastline of the Juan de Fuca straight. High up on the hill, you can see the vast ocean unfolding behind the trees.

We stop to make a few errands along the way, one of them being to buy gin at the small, local Sheringham Distillery, near Shirley. Here, we get to taste some yummy, intense and spicy tasting beverages such as their fabulous seaside gin, made with juniper, citrus, rose, coriander, lavender and local hand-harvested kelp.

Seaside Gin and its ingredients

Arriving at the lodge, I meet the other helpers straight away when we’re unloading the car. There are in total about 8 helpers from France, Canada, the Netherlands and Spain at the lodge at the moment, some who have been there for quite a while, others only staying around a month. It’s a very pleasant and relaxing atmosphere right away and I get to share a room with another person, Laura from Spain for a few days before she’ll be leaving and then I’ll have the room to myself.

The staff accommodation also contains a kitchen, living room and bathroom as well as an additional shower in an outhouse, which is spacious and very pleasant. Food is all provided by the lodge and stored in the two fridges in the accommodation. If anything runs out, we only have to walk up to the kitchen in the adjacent main building of the lodge and more food is provided. Staff dinners are prepared by the either of the two owners, Tim and Jon, who are brothers and originally come from Toronto, just after the dinner for the guests has finished.

The lodge itself is a magical place. The driveway off the main road in Port Renfrew is a gravel road just a bit more than 2 kilometres long. Hiking down to the town takes about half an hour each way. Up here, you can hear nothing, aside from the odd bird sound. The lodge on top of the hill offers views to the ocean as far as the eye can see, if there isn’t any marine fog creeping in which gives the view a mystic touch. The lodge consists of six yurts and one cabin, as well as four other rooms in the main house. A very tasty cooked breakfast is included in the room rate and dinner can be booked in addition – and the two brothers, who are both chefs by trade, serve utterly fantastic food.

One of the yurds at Soule Creek Lodge
Magical views from the main building & dining room
Main house at Soule Creek Lodge
Hot tub, Soule Creek Lodge
Sunset at the lodge

The helpers work 25 hours a week for free accommodation and food and if any additional hours are worked, these will get paid. Work is varied and ranges from serving breakfast or dinner, housekeeping and cleaning the rooms in the morning to early afternoon and / or building projects around the lodge. This summer, solar panels are being installed which is something that the guys are helping with. If anyone fancies exploring the area in their free time, the owners even let us the car to drive to the nearby sites in the beautiful nature of Port Renfrew – as long as the driver is old enough and has sufficient driving experience to be covered by their insurance.

On my first day, I’m able to help serving the mouth-watering dinner before we have our joint staff dinner of a delicious Vietnamese Pho with wontons. After that, we sit together in the cosy staff accommodation to enjoy some beer-based cocktails that Jon has prepared for us and a really fun game of “cards against humanity” before my first, great day at the lodge comes to an end.

One Reply to “Life at the lodge”

  1. Hi Cristina! Thank you for photos and description of your experience. Soon I’m going to spend few months in the same place as you and I’m very much excited. I’d be grateful if you could help me in creating a facebook group for workawayers in Canada, so that they can easily meet each other, look for shared rides, find a travel buddy or simply get inspired by one another’s travels https://www.facebook.com/groups/2315552298699563/. Thank you very much!

Leave a Reply