A group of six people, including a guide, are rafting churning white water. A large rock wall rises straight up behind them.

Watershed Workforce Program

Healthy watersheds depend on people who can live, work, and care for the places they call home.

The Watershed Workforce program connects young people to place-based learning and hands-on experience in watershed stewardship. Participants spend time on the land and water learning from those involved in restoration and care for local waterways, while exploring skills and career pathways connected to watershed health.

This program is designed to show that contributing to watershed health can be a viable and meaningful path, one that supports both communities and the long-term resilience of the Fraser Watershed.

Why This Matters

In many watershed communities, young people face limited local employment options and are often required to leave home to find steady work. The Watershed Workforce helps youth explore meaningful, place-based roles connected to land and water care, while building skills and experience that can support long-term livelihoods.

By supporting local skills, stewardship roles, and long-term capacity, the program helps strengthen both the people and the systems needed to care for watersheds over time.

How the Program Works

Watershed Workforce is a hands-on, place-based program that brings youth onto the land and water to learn directly from those working in watershed stewardship.

Experiences may include:

A canoe full of people looking and smiling at the camera. The canoe is in the Nechako River, in British Columbia.

Paddling and traveling waterways to understand watershed connections.

Learning from Indigenous knowledge holders, land stewards, and practitioners.

Exploring practical career pathways connected to watershed stewardship.

Contributing to on-the-ground projects that support watershed health.

The program is designed to be experiential, relational, and grounded in local context rather than classroom-based or prescriptive.

Connected to the Wider Work

The Watershed Workforce is part of Rivershed’s integrated approach to watershed health. In some regions, learning takes place alongside Foodlands corridor restoration and other place-based initiatives, allowing participants to see how long-term stewardship unfolds over time.

Experiences and learning from the program also inform broader efforts to strengthen watershed resilience, local capacity, and long-term investment in watershed health.

Two young woman are looking at the camera and smiling while they lower a sapling into a hole they dug in the ground.

Watershed Workforce on the sc̓e:ɬxʷəy̓əm (Salmon River)

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Thank you to the 2025 Watershed Workforce Program Funders

Logos for the following organizations are shown: Keta Legacy Foundation, Co-op Four Rivers, Outdoor Recreation Council of BC, The Hamber Foundation, Nachako-Kitamaat Development Fund Society, BC Hydro, Fortis BC, Province of British Columbia, MakeWay - Patagonia.org Impact Fund.

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