Symbolic links are allowed on my hosting provider. When I create a slave site using a symbolic link for administrator, everytime I go to www.slave1/administrator in the slave site, I get a message from my hosting provider like this:

Directory has no index file.
Browsing this site or directory without an index file is prohibited.

If you are the site's webmaster, you can remedy this problem by creating a default HTML page with one of the following names:

index.html
index.htm
default.htm
Default.htm
home.html
Home.chtml

NOTE: Filenames are case sensitive, i.e., Home.html is not the same as home.html

I tried to change the site creation template to copy the administrator folder but that just gives me a blank html page

Joomla use the "index.php" that you didn't listed in autorized default page.

Verify that the /administrator directory is present and contain the index.php file.
If yes, verify that you system recognize the index.php file as a default page.

You can also verify that you deployed the website into the correct directory when using the "hello.php" file (see video 7).
This will help you cross-check that you have correctly configured your domain or subdomain in your server and also will display you the full path where must be deployed the slave site.

I used the hello.php and this is the result

The creation of the 'master_link' directory is successfull
You have now a link [/hermes/bosweb/web097/b973/nf.psservicesca/districts/hamilton/public_html/master_link] -> [/hermes/bosweb/web097/b973/nf.psservicesca/public_html]
You can try to use the URL like www.slave.com/master_link/hello.txt

I went into the hosting cpanel and added index.php to the list of defaults

I am still getting the directory has no index...but when I check with FTP program to see if the administrator folder is even listed in the slave directory..it is not.

I have tried using SL: in template's files and folders and also copy:

Ensure that your FTP tool display the symbolic link.
Sometime, the servers or the FTP client does not display the symbolic link.

As you were able to create a link with the "hello.php" verify that you FTP client is able to display it.

If the FTP client display the symbolic link and that you don't see the "administrator" directory in the slave site, verify the definition of the slave site that you did in the JMS manage site menu.
You must deploy the slave site into the directory displayed with the "hello.php".

So deploy folder = /hermes/bosweb/web097/b973/nf.psservicesca/districts/hamilton/public_html

You are correct...there is no symbolic link showing in the FTP client (fireftp) and does not show in the Hosting Provider- control panel- file manager...I have verified that the site is deployed in the correct directory...is there something I should be asking the hosting company (NETFIRMS) or is there something else I should be looking at?

If your server does not show the symbolic link on FTP or that your FTP client does not display the symbolic link, I can just suggest that you use a SSH terminal to access your server and use the "ls -l" to display the list (ls) of files and folders with the symbolic links (-l)

This will help you verify that the files are correctly present or not.

You should have the "admninistrator" directory created as a symbolic link.

If you don't have it, verify that you have correctly defined the "deploy folder" in the JMS slave site definition.