Gull Lake PDC Additional Details

More information on the Gull Lake Permaculture Design Course location, facilities, meals and generally what you can expect is included below:

Location:

Birch Bay is a small quiet cottage community located on the north-west side of Gull Lake, in central Alberta. The course is hosted at a large retreat cabin.

The two nearest communities are Bentley (12 kms south) & Rimbey (18 kms north-west). Expect a 2h drive from Calgary, and 1h 15min from Edmonton.

The beach is a five minute walk away, has a sandy beach, nice playground & beach volleyball courts.

We will help students with carpooling arrangments.

Facilities

Free camping is available to all students with tent sites are spread out across two grassy lots. Larry’s Place is a small cabin, with two bedrooms, a small kitchen & living room located on one of the two lots. The bedrooms are available for rent to individual students but the living room & kitchen will serve as a common place for all students.

The shower at Larry’s Place and outdoor composting toilets are available to students.

Alternatively, within 2 kms there are two public campgrounds with full facilities & hook-ups

Meals:

Catering services are provide by Val, a professional Chef. Val promises an imaginative, hearty and delicious variety of fresh ingredients and local & organic wherever feasible. While we will do our best to accomodate special dietary needs, persons with highly restrictive diets must discuss this with us. Note that the kitchen at Larry's place is available for use by all students.

Comments from past students:

“Local, fresh, lots of it, super quality and excellent cooking”

“It would not have been the same course without the amazing food! I can't express enough how important the delicious healthy local organic food was to the whole experience”

A few other things you can expect:

• Registration commences on Saturday, August 7th. Once you arrive, you can set up camp and then spend the rest of the day at the beach or just settling in. There is no formal itinerary planned for Saturday evening – but impromptu campfire / music / socializing is expected!

• The course officially starts on Sunday the 8th at 9:00 am.

• The course will consist of in-depth class lectures, some hands-on practical applications and lots of sharing around a hearty table of delicious food.

• There will be guest speakers who will be joining us for optional evening workshops, slideshows, educational movies and of course, campfire banter.

• There are no classes planned for Saturday, the 14th of August. On your day-off you are welcome to relax around the site or the beach or go on an adventure around central Alberta.

• Wifi is available but you will need your own laptop and there is only limited bandwidth available.

• Bonuses include: time to lounge on the beach or swim in the lake, explore the beautiful surrounding woods and evening campfires with great people, banter and music

• The course will finish at approximately 5pm on Friday the 20th, followed by an evening feast and celebration. We recommend that you plan to leave Saturday the 21st.

We'd also be happy to put you in touch with past students.

If you have any other questions or requests for information, don't hesitate to contact us.