Freya Mayer - Summer Job Page

And sometimes, that bridge is made of rope, suspended 80 feet above a creek, swaying gently in the wind. Freya Mayer is a student at the University of British Columbia. West Coast Canopy Adventures will be hiring for the 2025 season beginning in March.

"Normally, a supervisor does the high-risk checks," she explains. "But it was just me and two new hires. We had a booking of 30 people arriving in two hours." freya mayer - summer job

For most university students, the summer job is a transactional affair: trade time for currency, endure the heat, and return to campus with a few extra dollars in your pocket. But for 21-year-old Freya Mayer, a junior majoring in Environmental Design at the University of British Columbia, this past summer became an accidental masterclass in leadership, logistics, and lateral thinking. And sometimes, that bridge is made of rope,

Instead of panicking or shutting down the course (which would have cost the company thousands in refunds), Freya improvised a solution. She called the owner on speakerphone, walked him through the visual inspection via video link, and then meticulously re-torqued four loose cable sleeves herself using a manual winch—a tool she had only watched YouTube tutorials on the night before. "Normally, a supervisor does the high-risk checks," she

"She didn't ask for permission to solve the problem; she asked for guidance on how to solve it," says Marcus Tolland, the owner of West Coast Canopy Adventures. "That’s a rare filter. Most people see a broken system and walk away. Freya saw a broken system and asked for the wrench." The group of 30 arrived—a corporate team from a downtown tech firm. Half of them were terrified of heights. Freya’s environmental design coursework focuses on human behavior in physical spaces. She realized the zip-line platform was no different from a badly designed transit hub.

Freya didn’t spend her summer in a sleek downtown internship. Instead, she could be found at 6:45 every morning, keys jangling on a carabiner clip, unlocking the gates of West Coast Canopy Adventures —a high ropes and zip-lining course nestled in the old-growth forest of Lynn Headwaters.