I’m not going to provide a lot of info here, but rather direct you to two great sources for information on avalanche safety:

• www.avalanche.ca – The site links to the Canadian Avalanche Foundation and Canadian Avalanche Center. This site provides all the bulletins, events, and safety info you will need.
• Avalanche First Response Training is an online course that is very useful tool to help learn the basic skills for avalanche rescue.

If you are going to be heading out into any areas that have even a remote chance of avalanche, you should prepare your self by taking the Avalanche Skills Training (AST-1) course. For $200 – $300 and 2 days of your time, it is a worthwhile investment, and is actually quite fun. You can take the course locally with the following places (thanks to Wanderung for compiling the list):

Vancouver and Whistler
Canada West Mountain School (www.themountainschool.com)
Coast Mountain Guides (www.coastmountainguides.com)
Whistler Alpine Guides Bureau (www.whistlerguides.com)

Vancouver Island
Island Alpine Guides (www.islandalpineguides.com)
Mount Washington Alpine Resort (www.mountwashington.ca)

I also highly recommend you watch the documentary below called A Dozen More Turns.