Who is the Canmore (Alberta)? | BLACKSMITHS OF THE WORLD! UNITE! | Forum

I used to live in Calgary which is less than an hour away from Canmore. Actually there is a blacksmith shop in Canmore looking to hire ornamental blacksmiths right now:

http://alberta.kijiji.ca/c-job.....Z268003895

Canmore is a beautiful, small city just outside the park gates to Banff National park in the Rocky Mountains. It lies on the valley floor between 2 rows of mountains. Recently it has become very popular with wealthier people who drive to Calgary for work or for vacation properties. That has driven up housing prices significantly.

Let me know if you would like to know anything specific and I will try my best to answer your questions.

Hi Andrei,

I'm not sure how easy it would be to come to Canada to work. I know that my company has had some delays with the Canadian government in bringing in employees from the U.S. to work for us. In construction the U.S. is still a fairly depressed market whereas in Canada we are very busy. The recession never hit Canada as hard as much of the rest of the world. We are actually sending recruiters over to Poland to try to recruit skilled carpenters and concrete workers for our company.

Perhaps if you talked with the the shop trying to hire blacksmiths and they like your work, they would do some legwork at this end to get you a work visa? There aren't very many commercial blacksmith shops in Canada that I know of. I think most of the blacksmiths are guys working out of their garages. The shop in Canmore is probably thriving due to the wealthy residences in the small city wanting ironwork for their houses as they can afford the expensive custom work. Alberta in general is doing quite well due to their large oil and natural gas reserves.

There is also another commercial shop not too far away on Kootenay Lake in British Columbia:
http://www.kootenayforge.com/index.htm

I'm not familiar with the Belarus systems, but Canadian residents are taxed quite heavily (mostly income tax). Canada has a relatively good medicare system. Alberta used to have a 1 time annual fee of around $150 for the medicare (most other provices are free). I'm not sure if this is still true.

The nature around Canmore is excellent. When I was living in Calgary, a women was killed by a grizzly bear when she was jogging by the golf course on the edge of town. Cougars, bighorn sheep and elk are common sightings in the town. There is a world-class nordic ski centre there, there is easy access to nearby glaciers, there is rafting on the river that flows through town, there is alpine skiing at about 4 resorts within an hour of the town. Banff National Park is around a 5 minute drive away.

Canmore can have some reasonably cold winters with lots of snow, but the winters are also broken up by chinooks that can raise the temperatur above freezing for a few days at a time.

I don't want to babble on too much more and tell you stuff you might already know. If you would like to know anything else, please let me know.

There a few blacksmiths around that area one in Nanton who is a master blacksmith willow creek forge and one in cochran who my sis know I think his name is Mark......

Hi Andrei,

I think more Canadians don't want the blacksmith jobs in Canmore because there just aren't very many blacksmiths in Canada to fill the positions. The job seems to require some specialized credentials such as CAD experience. I personally don't know of too many 'hands on' metalworkers that also have CAD experience.

In Alberta and Saskatchewan there are a lot of resources that are in high demand right now. Oil, potash, uranium, diamonds, natural gas etc. are all driving the economies and those industries also require support that creates new jobs. Unfortunately, if you are working in these industries, you probably won't be able to live in Canmore as the resources are located east of the Rocky Mountains.

Have you done any research into a work visa yet? I can't help you with any details as to how easy it would be to get one. I do know that the ski resorts in nearby Banff and Lake Louise etc. all have a very international work force as many people pick up seasonal jobs at the resorts while they are travelling through Canada.