fRI Research - 2026 Summer Field Technician Application Logo

  • fRI Research Employment Opportunities

  • fRI Research Overview

    fRI Research is a not-for-profit organization conducting applied research to improve land and resource management. Our scientific research helps bridge the gap between knowledge and practice. Our office is in Hinton Alberta, where you can enjoy hiking, fishing, camping, wildlife viewing, skiing, OHVing, outdoor yoga, and many other year-round outdoor activities.

  • During the course of this application you will have the opportunity to apply for positions with the Caribou Program, and/or the Grizzly Bear Monitoring Project, and/or the Water and Fish Program.

  • Caribou Program (CP) Overview

    The fRI Research Caribou Program was created in 2013 to conduct and coordinate research on caribou in Alberta. The goal of the program is to provide land and resource managers with knowledge and planning tools through applied research to support Alberta’s caribou recovery efforts and ensure their long-term persistence.

  • CP Job Description

    CP field technicians and crew leads will primarily conduct fieldwork. Working in 2-person teams, the field staff will: travel by road and hike up to 3 km (one-way) into identified locations carrying field equipment and trail cameras; set up and take down remote sensing wildlife cameras and temperature loggers; assess wildlife habitat by classifying forest stand characteristics, identifying vegetation species, and recording wildlife sign on wellsites, in harvest blocks, and in old-growth forest in caribou habitat. Occasionally, field staff may conduct office work including uploading data, classifying wildlife photos, and verifying data submissions. Additional duties will include preparations for remote shifts prior to departure and field camp and field equipment maintenance and organization. Depending on experience, the technician may be offered a crew-lead position involving organizational and logistical tasks, being a point of contact between supervisors and the field team, and taking on a leadership role in field settings. Training and office work (but little of the fieldwork) will be staged out of Hinton, Alberta. Fieldwork will primarily be staged out of remote field camps to survey west-central and north-western Alberta caribou ranges. The work is physically strenuous.

  • Grizzly Bear Monitoring Project (GBMP) Overview

    The fRI Research Grizzly Bear Monitoring Project was created in 2023 to maintain long-term grizzly bear datasets and collect grizzly bear demographic data throughout Alberta. Our current goal is to explore new monitoring methods through genetics and hormones from hair to determine the viability of coarse scale grizzly bear monitoring in Alberta.

  • GBMP Job Description

    The main aim of the GBMP team is to collect grizzly bear hair samples using non invasive collection methods and observe sampling sites with the use of trail cameras to monitor grizzly bear populations in Alberta. Working in 2-person teams, the field technicians will travel by road to preselected sites, hike up to 3km into identified locations carrying field equipment, and set up hair collection stations and trail cameras. Sites will be distributed over large areas and this position will require long hours of driving on forestry and gravel roads on a daily basis. Once established, sites will be revisited every 10 - 14 days to collect hair samples and trail camera data. Day-to-day tasks will involve driving 4-wheel drive trucks on gravel roads, navigating using maps and GPS locations, using radios and other communication devices, hiking through dense uneven terrain, establishing and sampling hair collection stations, handling barbed wire and and bear attractants, identifying vegetation species, and accurately collecting biological samples and ecological data. Additional duties involve fieldwork preparation, data entry and photo classification, working with various software programs for data management, and field equipment maintenance. Fieldwork for this project will be conducted between Hinton and Nordegg, and in the Swan Hills region.

  • Water and Fish Program (WFP) Overview

    The fRI Research Water and Fish program was refocused in 2021 to assess the cumulative effects (human and natural disturbances) that influence Alberta’s water and fish. The goal of our program is to quantify these cumulative effects, assess fish populations, and work with government, industry, land owners, academics, and NGO’s to provide data and learnings that can be used to implement and monitor recovery actions.

  • WFP Job Description

    The field technician will contribute to a variety of projects over the summer that may include but are not limited to: a water temperature monitoring project; a population assessment of Arctic Grayling in Swan River First Nation; a project collecting eDNA of cold-water sport fish species found throughout Alberta. The technician will perform a combination of office and fieldwork. Working in teams of 2 or more, the technician will travel to various new or pre-determined sites by road and hike up to 5km (one-way). When hiking you will be required to carry field gear in a backpack (up to 50lb). Site specific tasks will vary but may include temperature logger deployment and retrieval, backpack electrofishing, angling, eDNA collection, and CABIN sampling. Applicants must be comfortable working in and around water and should be comfortable handling fish. Other duties will involve fieldwork prep, data entry, equipment maintenance and equipment inventory. Fieldwork will take place in various remote locations across the Alberta foothills and in central Alberta.

  • How to use this Application Form

  • Navigate through this form using the NEXT and BACK buttons at the bottom of each page. You can go back and forth as much as you would like and change your answers if needed.

    You only need to SAVE your application form if you want to pause the application process. When you SAVE the application a link will be emailed to you which will allow you to access your unfinished application and complete it at a later time. 

    Please read the questions carefully. Some of the follow up questions you will see are conditional on previous answers given. Ensure that you have checked all checkboxes and filled all other fields applicable to you before submitting your application. Incomplete applications will be excluded from the job competition.

    You can type your answers directly into the text boxes in this form or compose your answers in another program and copy them into this application form, but be advised that complex formatting will not transfer.

    Please do not feel obligated to use the text boxes to their maximum word count. Concise statements in point form are preferable whenever possible. If provided, do follow the format of answers given in examples. Improperly formatted answers may be excluded from the job competition.

    Questions requiring a YES-NO answer are programmed to NO as the default setting. If you want to change the answer to YES, click on the YES-NO slide bar below the question.

    Once you have submitted this form, a copy of your application will be emailed to you.

              We wish you a successful application process!

                                                  - The fRI Research Team

  • Additional Details

    BEFORE continuing with the application process, please consider the following:

    Wages: $22/hour to $25.75/hour depending on the applicant’s experience and qualifications. 

    Timeline: Field Technician training may start as early as April 27th, 2026 in Hinton, AB. Some technicians may be given the opportunity to start earlier to aid in field season preparations depending on availability and experience. Contract end-dates will be August 31st, 2026. A limited number of extensions may be possible depending on project workloads and candidate availability.

    The fieldwork schedule is 9 days on, 5 days off for CP and GBMP, but varies for WFP, 7 to 12 hours per day with approximately 75 to 88 hours per pay period. The training and office schedule is based on 75 hours per pay period. Pay is bi-weekly. Work will be conducted in teams of 2.

    For fieldwork, accommodation, food, and transportation will be provided. Accommodation for remote fieldwork will be in camps, cabins, holiday trailers, or tents in serviced and unserviced campgrounds. 

    The majority of fieldwork will involve walking off-trail through a variety of terrain for up to 5km one-way per site. ATVs may be used on occasion, depending on the project. The work is physically strenuous. 

    The application deadline for this job opportunity is January 31st, 2026. Interviews will be conducted during the second half of February.

  • 1. Contact Information

    Please provide us with your Name, Address, Email, and Phone Number
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  • 2. Availability

  • 3. Resume Upload

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  • 4. Essential Qualifications

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  • 5. Education

  • Note: Add lines if required using the (+) button above

  • 6. Team Work

    Due to the remoteness of the work, it is an essential job qualification to have experience working as part of a team, and having experience navigating difficult situations within the team. Demonstrate with your answers your experience working as part of a team.
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  • 7. General outdoor work and fieldwork experience

    Examples of outdoor work are landscaping, farming, operating a trapline, etc. Fieldwork experience sets itself apart from outdoor work experience by involving data collection following specific scientific data collection protocols.

  • 8. Fieldwork Experience/Skills

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  • 9. Driving Experience

    This set of questions pertains to your experience level of driving 4x4 trucks and ATVs.
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  • 10. Which positions are you applying for? Check all that apply

  • 10.1. CP Fieldwork Experience: Vegetation ID

  • If you do have vegetation identification experience, please specify which ecozone in Canada your experience applies to in the table below using this map as a guide. If you do not have vegetation identification experience, please skip this page.

    (Map citation: McMullin, Richard. (2018). New and interesting lichens and allied fungi from British Columbia, Nova Scotia, Nunavut, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, and Quebec, Canada. Opuscula Philolichenum. 17.)

  • Note: Add lines if required using the (+) button above

  • 10.2. Do you have leadership experience?

    Do you have experience as a crew leader or a supervisor?

  • 10.3. CP Leadership Experience

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  • 11. Additional Considerations

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  • 12. Please tell us how you became aware of this position

  • Thank you for you application(s) please either save and review your application or submit you application

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