Not 20 minutes into Todd Doherty’s Relay for Life 24-hour marathon, the skies over the CN Centre parking lot opened up on him.
The rain left him drenched from head to toe and it only got chillier in his wet clothes as the night went on. It was cold enough in some areas near the city that frost formed on windshields but Doherty continued walking laps of the parking lot where he had parked his travel trailer. With every lap he passed by a stand of paper bag luminaries that spelled out the word HOPE.
If this had been any other year those paper bags would have held candle lights to shine along the path of the relay to remember fathers, mothers, grandparents, children and friends whose lives have been lost to cancer. Hundreds of people would have been there alongside Doherty, walking with him or waving from their tents set up along the route for the annual Canadian Cancer Society fundraising event. The COVID pandemic and the crowd-size restrictions in place to fight the virus put a stop to that, but the relay spirit lived on Saturday. Instead of gathering in one spot, people got together virtually or in small groups to keep the drive alive in their own neighbourhoods.
For the 52-year-old Doherty, the Member of Parliament for Cariboo-Prince George, this was the sixth straight year he willed himself to walk the entire 24 hours, and he was part of the relay on teams ever since he moved to the city in 1999. His reasons for putting his body through a seemingly endless day of torture brought out the emotion in his voice.
“It pales in comparison to the fight of cancer – I lost my father two years ago to multiple myeloma, my brother’s fought cancer twice and beaten it, my father-in-law is living with us right now in palliative care,” said Doherty. “My aunt died of it, my uncle died of it, and my wife had a massive (benign) tumour last January that was removed.
“When you walk with survivors or you walk with those who have been left behind, it’s in my fibre. I hate the disease and we have to do whatever we can to beat it. I relay because I believe that one day a cancer diagnosis won’t be a death sentence. That’s why we do this and we can’t let the (COVID-19) crisis stop the fight against cancer.”
Doherty had company throughout the night and as he trudged along the asphalt lot. Kyle Sampson, who usually gets behind the mic as the Relay for Life DJ for the Late, Late Show, came by at 3 a.m. and after walking for three hours he left a speaker loaded with a Spotify playlist and 33 hours of upbeat music to keep the glide in Doherty’s stride. At 4 a.m., Lindy Steele walked for an hour step by step with Doherty, filling the early-morning time slot she used to always walk as part of a family team with her husband, who died of cancer two years ago.
By noon Saturday, with six hours left, Doherty was still putting two feet forward steadily, knowing not to sit down during his breaks because getting back up again was a major chore. He was supposed to be in Ottawa for a meeting on Thursday but postponed it so he could do the walk. He changed the start time from the usual 10 a.m. Saturday start to 6 p.m. Friday just so he would have a few hours to recover before leaving in a flight to the nation’s capital on Sunday.
“This event means so much, I’m not going to miss it,” he said. “I always tell the flight attendants I’m going to be snoring and drooling , and maybe whimpering a little bit.”
This year’s virtual relay drew 370 registrants, and wherever they gathered they drew crowds. Team Dillers put together a team for the relay at Bear Lake , while Ashley’s Angels hung a banner on a boat they used to cruise Bednesti Lake on Saturday.
On McKinley Crescent, in the Highland neighbourhood, Mandy Marques had her relay tent set up in front of her house as the rallying point for Team Horseshoe. She started that 10 years ago, forming a relay team in memory of her aunt, Sharon Slater, who died of ovarian cancer in 2004. On the street, the start/finish line was marked out on chalk and signs were hung on streetlamp posts to outline the route. To keep the team of 20 walkers fortified they had heaping plates of samosas on hand.
“This is our 10th year doing it and with the relay being cancelled this year we didn’t want to stop, so we decided to do it here,” said Marques, who teamed up with her friend and neighbor Janna Schmidt to organize the McKinley walk.
“We’re Team Horseshoes because (Sharon) loved to play horseshoes and that’s how we got together. Two laps of McKinley is one kilometre and we have a time sheet and we do half-an-hour intervals, which we’ve always done, and we’re going to walk the 24 hours. It just kind of snowballed, making it more and more like the relay.”
Nationally, the event had raised more than $1 million by last Tuesday and was on track to end up with $4 million. Prince George, the only Relay for Life that goes for 24 hours, contributed $410,000 to the cause last year.
“The other day we were at just over $100,000, so we will see a significant decline this year and that’s totally understandable,” said Canadian Cancer Society community manager Aimee Cassie. “People are out of work and are nervous for what’s coming in the fall. One thing we keep highlighting is cancer doesn’t stop in a pandemic.
“It’s tough (not having the usual crowds) because we’re used to cheering on our survivors and they need that and it’s bigger than money. They need to know that there’s a community behind them. One of the silver linings in this really devastating year for us is that relay spirit is here so strong in people wanting to relay in a different way. I have absolutely no doubt we’ll be back next year, louder and prouder.”
