Spirit Warriors team up in treatment, dragon boating, and enhancing cancer support in Kamloops

“This is the third Pink Harvest Gala and we’re fundraising for the Spirit Warriors Breast Cancer Survivors Dragon Boat Team,” says Ann McCarthy, one of the founding members of the team, and the current vice-chair of the Kamloops Cancer Supportive Care Society.

McCarthy toured CFJC around the gala set-up Friday morning where dozens of volunteers getting the space ready. According to McCarthy, the gala they’re setting up for is how the Spirit Warriors keep their dragon boating affordable.

“We use the money to help pay fees and expenses because a lot of women who have cancer just can’t cover those fees themselves. So we try to help out,” explains McCarthy. “This year we received money for a new boat from the Sports Legacy Fund so we’re helping to augment those funds too.”

The team is made up of nearly 40 people, and they’re all either breast cancer survivors or people who are currently fighting the disease.

“I just love when we’re out on the water, especially when we’re out on a Saturday morning and the river is like glass and it’s just so calming and peaceful. Just being out in the fresh air with everybody,” says Angie Harink, who originally joined the team in 2014, and is their newest coach.

“But my favourite is when we’re racing and we’re in competitions in stuff. That’s a real adrenaline high, and I love it when we race.”

There’s a bond of shared expected both on, and off the water. Lori Ann Jorde says that’s a huge reason she chose to start training with the group.

“It felt like home because explaining what I’m feeling post-treatment is a little difficult for people who haven’t been through the treatment, who haven’t gone through that road,” she explains, having received her diagnosis in late 2023, “It’s just easier to have community that understands.”

There’s also loss. Since the team started in 2008, 13 teammates have passed.

“Some of our ladies have had their cancers reoccur so we try to be there and help and support them as much as we can,” notes Harink. “So yeah, it’s more of a family.”

BC Cancer’s director of screening operations, Rableen Nagra, says regular screenings are a key part in catching something early, and that in turn can influence what sort of outcome someone has.

“It’s definitely proven, there’s around 350 different protocols out there for cancer treatment. So once we are able to find something early, you just have so many more options to make sure that it is treated in a more effective way and you have better outcomes, and then have that support moving forward,” Nagra said.

Awareness this month is important, but the Spirit Warriors advocate year-round. Many of their members, including McCarthy, are also part of the Kamloops Cancer Supportive Care Society, which has been working alongside InspireHealth and the Royal Inland Hospital Foundation to establish the InspireHealth Supportive Cancer Centre.

“Not only are we patients but we have a role to play in prevention and in supportive care,” added McCarthy. “And as a team, the Spirit Warriors, we take it very seriously that we have a responsibility. We just feel we have a responsibility.”

The group recently paddles that project across the finish line, with the new support centre set to open in downtown Kamloops in a few months time.

by Dylana Kneeshaw

Spirit Warriors team up in treatment, dragon boating, and enhancing cancer support in Kamloops

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