Become an Intern

Created by Ronnie Gelman, Modified on Thu, 14 Sep, 2023 at 4:46 PM by Ronnie Gelman

Internships at the Lifeboat Academy vary in length and opportunity; they are guided by your specific goals and interests in the realms of resilience, regenerative living, agriculture, and/or effective collaboration.


The Lifeboat Academy is located at Spalding Valley Farm on S,DÁYES / Pender Island, BC, and aims to be:
  • A model of resilience and regeneration at the person, place and community level
  • A footprint farm working to provide a complete diet for 16 people
  • A regenerative learning centre offering the opportunity to participate in an ongoing, living experiment

Interns live and work alongside our permanent Farmer-Caretakers to develop Spalding Valley Farm as a model of regenerative agriculture and cooperation. Ideal candidates are interested in learning about some or all of the following:
  • growing food and raising animals using regenerative and/or permaculture techniques 
  • responding to the Polycrisis of climate change and social collapse
  • working in a highly collaborative way
  • openness to personal transformation to move toward right relationship with all our relations

What we are able to offer:
  • room and board in exchange for your on-farm activity (no salary)
  • fellow interns and farmers for inspiration and collaboration
  • mutual peer support to build what comes after
  • a sense of adventure
  • 47 acres of land to play with. 


If you're interested in an internship, please fill out this questionnaire so we can learn a bit about you and your interests.


We'll be reviewing your responses to see if there's a fit, and if so, we'll invite you to Zoom call to talk more about what your internship might look like. If we're all still interested, we will invite you for a 2-3 day visit; if that goes well, we'll invite you to begin your internship when it works for everyone, starting with our 10-day Gumboot Bootcamp.


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