• First you have to apply for it, you send us your resume and an essay telling us why should we pick YOU up. Then we filter the applicants and take some of them into the "Pre-Season Camp", where we teach the basics and evaluate team working skills, water confidence, friendliness, etc.
• The Pre-Season Camp takes place in April. By the end of the Camp, if you worked hard and we like what we see, we will offer you a position for the summer.
• After the Pre-Season Camp it is up to you when to take the final exam, it can be the next day or three months later, whenever you feel comfortable. As soon as you pass the exam (Check out) you can start guiding and earning money.
• At the end of the season you can either jump into the snowboard or skiing and work for us in the winter or you can hook up with our partner companies in the South Hemisphere to keep rafting year round.

Long sunny days, steep mountains and tons of snow melting during the summer make Norway one of the top paddling destinations in the world, just surf the net, then you will know what we are talking about.
As one of the Pioneers of White Water Rafting in Norway Viking Adventures keeps the Best Safety Record of the region, without sacrificing fun and entertainment. A big part of that credit goes to our Top of the Line Staff; in one line: we only hire the Best. Nowadays it's hard to pick out the good guides, they are rare. Many "guides" out there do this for only the fun and never really take it as serious as it is, and we don't put our guest on anybody's hands. Getting good Guides some times is hard, some times it is just easier to "grow" our own:
That is what the Viking School is about: producing the best river guides in the south of Norway. It is not easy, there is a lot of hard work to be done if you want to join the team. Our school is divided in several steps for two good reasons: First, not everybody is good for this and we will not charge you for teaching you something you can not use, second, we will teach you only if we know you will work for us. We are not going to turn you into one of the best and then let the other companies take you away.

Raft Guide Training (6 days)
Correct, lifting & carrying techniques
The principles of safety
The principles of rescue
Signals & communication in the river environment
Norwegian rescue services and medical/emergency contact numbers
Risk assessments in the working environment
Incident management
Legal considerations concerning a raft trip
Raft safety specifications
Equipment carried by a raft guide
Initial customer brief
Safety talk
Conducting pre-trip defensive & offensive swim training
Boarding a raft correctly whilst it is sitting in moving water
Boat handling skills, draw strokes, pry strokes, trimming, ferry gliding, checking and setting, eddy turns, negotiating waves, and surfing
Flipping the raft
Throw-line rescues from a raft
Raft to swimmer rescue
Raft stopper & 'broach' rescues
Unconscious swimmer rescues; raft to swimmer, kayak to swimmer & swimmer to swimmer
The role of the safety kayaker
Kayak safety specifications & equipment carried by the safety kayaker
Medical considerations. Near drowning, medical aliments asthma epilepsy), spinal injuries, cold water immersion & contents of a first aid kit.
River running, river running and more river running, to gain experience and confidence
White Water Rescue (3 days)
Herefor you get a certificate calling you a "Whitewater Rescue Technician". This qualification is needed, if you like to work for us as a rafting guide. You have to pass this course. The course will be held somewhere in Norway be a certified "Whitewater Rescue Instructor".

• Rescuer safety, training and equipment
• Water dynamics
• Medical Considerations
• Panic and survival
• Dealing with family, bystanders and documentation
• Communications
• Management, organization and size-up
• Helicopter familiarization
• On-scene safety orientations
• Introduction to ropes, knots and technical gear
• Anchors and basic tensioning systems
• Basic swimming positions
• Eddy catching/hopping, aggressive swimming
• Supervised swim in a "hole"
• Swimming a line across the river
• Foot and body entrapment/vertical pins
• Aggressive swimming over a strainer
• Throw bags, twice within 20 secs.
• Throw coils, twice within 20 secs.
• Tension diagonal
• Shallow water crossings
• Contant rescues
• 2 point boat and rope system
• 4 point boat and rope system
• Watercraft familiarization (specify)
• Unpinning boats
• Tyrolean boat on tether
• Rescue problem
• Climbing (2 days)
  Two days of instructions to be a climbing guide. We will train you in the indoor hall and outdoor at the rocks. You will learn how to belay and how to climb yourself, so you can give your experience to the customers.
• High Rope Course (2 days)
  Another two days of training for the one-and-only HRC in Southern Norway. You will be trained in active and passive skills and learn how to control and guarantee the safety of the area.
• First Aid (1 day)
  Basic first aid. Learn how to help injured customers and know how to call for professional help. This day also includes preparing your own First-Aid-Kit.

When you sign up for our Training Program You pay 1.500 Euros, That will be the cost of your education before you start working. The very less a good River guide can earn in one month is 1.000 Euros, working around 60 hours per month.
If after the Pre-Season Camp in April WE consider you will not be hired by us the next season then you get 600 Euros back. If YOU quit the program then for any reasons you get 400 euros back. Ten days after the Pre-Season Camp no reimbursements will be done.
What is included? Rooming for the Preseason Camp
All the gear you need until you pass the Final Exam, called "Check out". All transportation to rivers, and other training activities. The knowledge itself. Theory Book, Logbook and Certificates.

It is fun, there is NO guide who does it only for the money. They (we) all do it for the fun (and money is of course welcome) You get big amounts of adrenaline, you are outdoors away from offices, computers and faxes. You make friends from all over the globe and get to travel to unexpected remote places. Norway today, Zambezi tomorrow and Costa Rica or Chile the next year. Since you do sports it helps to keep you in shape and good health.
River Guides get paid according to their experience and skills. The older and better you are the more you get paid per trip and the more trips you do per month. Every season we slightly readjust the salaries scale according to inflation and prices of tours for the season. In the season 2007 the lowest level of guide got paid 350 NOK per trip.
In a busy weekend each guide makes 3 trips per day, in the lowest point of the season each guide does 3 trips per week. The application for your Working Visa and Norwegian ID Number will say you will earn 1000 Euros per month, which is, in average, the base salary.
Most European citizens can pick how they want to get paid, as an employed or as a free lancer. If you want to be a free lancer you have to do the paperwork for the Norwegian Working Permits yourself, as well as your taxes. If working as an employed the taxes are automatically taken out from your salary.
You are free to ask for a day off any time you want, Guides normally don't do it. Most of them just work hard when it is busy and travel around when it is not. Flexibility is very well appreciated in this line of work. As a company we are concerned about National Events so we normally do not take much booking for the weeks of the Events, this includes Voss Extreme Week and Sjoa Festival. What this means is: if you need the money you can stay, we need some guides. If you want to compete or meet your friends you can go, because we don't need all the guides those weeks.
Monday and Friday are typically the Days Off. From Tuesday to Thursday is the busiest, we get the school groups. Saturday and Sunday are the funniest, we get the Adults and the Families.
Unemployment Found Sponsoring In case you are unemployed find out if your Country is willing to sponsor your education. Some countries, for example Germany, are willing to cover the cost of this School. The main line is normally the fact that you found a job in a foreign Country, you just need some special training. The paperwork is normally harder than the School itself, but it is worth to give it a try. Just contact your local unemployment office and ask them what the possibilities are.