Women in Action walkers brave nasty weather, reach Igloolik in two days

This year’s Women in Action walkers pose with supporters who made a banner to welcome the group to Hall Beach last weekend, where they departed on their two-day walk May 4. (PHOTO COURTESY OF ZILLAH GIBBONS PIALLAQ)

This year’s Women in Action group took their final Steps of Hope towards Igloolik May 5, completing the third edition of the long-distance walk to raise money for breast cancer research.

The group of eight women left Hall Beach May 4, a few days later than planned, due to bad weather. The group walked about 35 kilometres each day for two days, reaching Igloolik in high winds just after 6:00 p.m. May 5.

In the three walks that the Women in Action founder and Commissioner of Nunavut Edna Elias has led, she said this was the most grueling.

“Weather was not in our favour; very high head winds, near blizzard conditions, deep soft snow,” Women of Action founder Edna Elias posted to the group’s Facebook page May 6.

“It was a test of strength and endurance physically and mentally.”

The guides accompanying the eight women were concerned for the group’s safety, she said, and at times had the walkers ride in the qamutik through rough areas.

But the group finished the walk as scheduled, arriving to an elated crowd of 200 supporters in Igloolik. The community planned a feast for the walkers May 6.

“People are amazingly generous,” Elias said. “We are awestruck.”

Elias, who has served as Commissioner of Nunavut for the past five years, launched the first Women in Action-Steps of Hope walk in 2012, when a group of five women trekked from Bay Chimo to Cambridge Bay.

In 2014, the group walked from Whale Cove to Rankin Inlet.

The 2015 walk included the largest group yet: along with Elias, former CBC broadcaster Joanna Awa, Iqaluit’s mayor Mary Wilman, Rhoda Ungalaq, Tineka Simmons, Bernadette Dean and Kathy Nateela.

Nateela, from Arviat, is a breast cancer survivor, now 13 years from her initial diagnosis.

For the event’s founder, Elias, this year’s walk marked her last one in her term as Commissioner of Nunavut, which ends May 11.

“It’s a perfect way to wrap up my role as commissioner,” she said.

While last year’s Steps of Hope brought in $70,000 for breast cancer research, this year’s Women in Action are aiming for $100,000 — money that will be donated to the Alberta Cancer Foundation.

So far the group has raised roughly $40,000, although “it’s when the walk actually starts that people really start donating,” Elias said.

Donations can be made here.