Stories & Features

Open to Indigenous candidates, Try-a-Trade program offers 16-week placements

An avid swimmer, Natasha Hanson was making pretty good money in Quesnel working as a lifeguard. But she wanted to learn something new, so she quit her job and headed to Kamloops for electrician foundation training at Thompson Rivers University (TRU).

"I really enjoyed math and physics in high school and learning about how electricity works," recalls Hanson, who was recently profiled in a popular BC Hydro Instagram post. "We all know a bit about how electricity works, but do we really even know how the lights in our house work? I didn't want an office job, and I wanted to learn more about this."

Mid-way through her first year at TRU, Hanson applied for BC Hydro's electrician apprenticeship program. She never even got an interview – she didn't yet have the program's prerequisites covered – but she pushed on, undaunted.

That's when she learned about BC Hydro's Try-a-Trade program for Indigenous applicants. Of the Williams Lake First Nation, Hanson qualified for a program that offers a chance to try two different BC Hydro trades through a 16-week paid work experience program. That training includes classroom learning and job experience placements with our crews in various locations across the province.

Hanson wound up living for four months in a work camp north of Revelstoke, experiencing work at the Mica Dam and Power Station, one of the world's largest earth-fill dams.

"It was a blast there," she says. "The food was great, there was a pool at the camp and I swam almost every morning before work. There is so much going on at Mica, and I got to work with almost everybody on that electrical crew – there were something like 15 electricians there. I gained a ton from that experience.

"I was later hired with eight other apprentice electricians and one motor winder in my group. It was great meeting other people from all around B.C. in similar stages of their apprenticeship with BC Hydro."

This year's round of Try-A-Trade applications is open until July 14, 2024, and successful applicants will be placed starting in October 2024. Some people may think that trades work at BC Hydro is only about being a power line technician, but the opportunities are numerous. The list of possible roles includes generation mechanic or machinist, generation plant operator, communications protection and control technologists, electricians, fleet mechanics, and meter technicians.

While the Try-a-Trade program is designed for Indigenous applicants, there are numerous apprenticeship, technologist trainee and engineer-in-training opportunities available to all students and recent graduates:

• Apprenticeships: Get paid while you learn via on-the-job and classroom training.
• Pre-apprentice power line technician (PLT): A one-year temporary opportunity to explore the PLT trade prior to obtaining an apprenticeship.
• Engineers-in-training: Valuable experience for engineering graduates to gain valuable work experience to put towards achieving their Professional Engineering Designation.
• Technologist trainees: Get paid while learning skills required to become a fully qualified technologist.
• Co-op educational learning: Hands-on work experience in the electrical, mechanical, and civil engineering field.
• Tour guides (Visitor centres): Educate visitors from around the world about hydroelectricity, electrical safety, and energy conservation at one of our three Visitor Centres across B.C.

'The people at Mica were just so welcoming'

Hanson admits to a bit of initial uneasiness in heading to a somewhat remote work camp that's a two-hour drive north of Revelstoke. But after leaving her car in Salmon Arm, she says her nerves were calmed by BC Hydro workers who shared her long carpool drive to the work camp.

"I was a little bit nervous at first, because it's a camp job and you're with a bunch of guys," she says. "I was literally the only female working in trades there. There was one female planner and a couple women admin staff. But I really had a great experience and enjoyed it so much that I'd love to go back there."

Hanson's first step in her apprenticeship training was a month at our trades training centre in Surrey, learning about the likes of protecting yourself against falls, working in confined spaces and doing a deep dive into electricity generation fundamentals. She joined the other apprentices at visits to a substation and Ruskin Generating Station, and is now apprenticing in Kamloops.

Her advice to others looking to apply for the Try-a-Trade program is that if you want to do it, commit to it. She thinks the doors that open through Try-a-Trade and apprenticeships are not to be underestimated.

"If you want less financial stress, go for a trade," she says. "I'm looking at some of my friends who are very educated, and very smart, and one of them just finished his engineering degree. I don't want to think about the amount of debt he has. And his starting wage is likely to be less than what he can make at an entry level for a trade."