Permaculture has grown to be a worldwide movement, and RAVIS Sustainable is proud to be progressing this movement in Alberta. Become a part of Alberta’s newly forming permaculture community. Meet other progressive and like-minded people and join us for a totally empowering, two-week residential experience that is very likely to change your life.

Our second year offering the Gull Lake Permaculture Design Certiciate Course is sure to build off the immense success of last year and offer a truly outstanding experience to students wishing to immerse themselves in permaculture.

Design Inspired by Nature

Dates & Location:

The course is held at Gull Lake, in central Alberta. More detailed location and facility information is included on the additional course details page.

This 12 day intensive course starts on Sunday August 8th and finishes on Friday August 20th. No classes are planned for Saturday August 14th.

Course Description:

This course is an efficient and cost effective means of gaining strategies, skills, techniques and an overall foundational knowledge for designing & developing sustainable human settlements from small urban homes to broad acre farms and both small & large communities. 

Permaculture empowers individuals to take sustainability into their own hands by providing key design principals and ethics that allow individuals to design sustainability into their life. The Pemaculture design system is based around holistic philosophies and systems thinking which allow humans to work with nature rather than against it.

The course is applicable to everyone from beginner home gardeners to professional horticulturists and engineers to landscape architects wishing to learn more about designing for sustainability. Whether your interest is gardening, farming, planning, building homes, community work, economic regeneration, business or green lifestyles, the application of permaculture principles empowers you to make a positive contribution towards a sustainable future. With approximately 72 hours of classroom and hands on instruction this two week intensive course will provide a tool box that will allow students to design meaningful systems that are not only sustainable but regenerative.

Course will cover:

• Theory and principles of permaculture

• Eco-friendly house placement and design

• Energy conservation techniques for cold climates

• Renewable energy systems, feasibility, placement and design

• Recycling and waste management

• Organic food production

• Cold temperate food forest design based on Canadian climatic conditions

• Water harvesting and management

• Grey water utilization and management

• Ecological pest control

• Drought-proofing

• Soil rehabilitation and erosion control

• Sustainable livestock management

• Aquaculture systems and design

• Catastrophe preparedness and prevention

• Windbreaks and fire control

Additional Workshops may include:

• Mushroom propagation

• Food preservation

• A field trip to an urban permaculture site

• Tree grafting techniques

• Broad acre survey techniques

• Sheet mulching and guild planting

There’s no question that this Permaculture Design Course will equip you with the ability to confront cultural, environmental and energy-supply change and provide you with the tools to become a more sustainable and energy efficient member of the community.

All students will receive their own copy of Bill Mollison’s Permaculture A Designers Manual, on which the course content is based. Students who successfully complete the course will receive a Permaculture Design Certificate. Course completion is based upon attendance and a group presentation of a final design project.

What our past students are saying:

"Fantastic Experience. Life Changing. Thanks!"

- Martin Scholz, Red Deer

"I knew that this would be a life changing course going into it and it hasn't disappointed. I will carry this energy, memory and community into however I practice permaculture. I have valued the ethical emphasis and commitment, the intensity of the overall course. Thank-you, Thank-you, Thank-you!!!"

- Ken MacLeod, Saskatoon.

"Thank you, this was the boiled down, simple, straight forward specific path to sustainable living and development"

-Maurice Samm, Camrose

"The PDC was incredibly well organized and the level of education, amazing. Thanks for the experience!"

- Carissa deJong, Edmonton

See photos from past courses on our blog.

The lead instructor is Rob Avis.

More information on the location, facilities, meals and information on what to expect can be found on the additional course details page. 

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

Please be sure to review our course cancellation policy.