Michelle Martin is getting more and more nervous for her trip with Prairie Women on Snowmobiles. Martin is part of the core rider team for 2018 with 10 women heading out from Regina on Feb. 3 to raise money and awareness for breast cancer treatment and detection.
The tour will wrap up in Estevan on Feb. 9.
“Words cannot describe how grateful and humble I am to have been chosen as a core rider for mission 2018,” said Martin in her Prairie Women on Snowmobile biography.
Martin is originally from St. Benedict but currently lives in Saskatoon working at Whitecap Dakota First Nations as their Community Justice Coordinator, said her biography.
While this has been something that Martin has always wanted to do, with many cousins and friends part of previous teams, this year was the year, she says.
And Martin has several reasons why this was something she has always wanted to do.
“Breast cancer has been in my family and a part of my family. My mom, my baba, my aunts are all breast cancer survivors,” she says.
Martin’s sister-in-law is currently fighting breast cancer with many other family members being touched by other cancers as well, including her husband and brother.
“Cancer has just become part of our everyday life,” she says, that was the year to do it for family and friends who have won the battle and who are still battling.
While this is going to be an amazing experience, the ride is not about her, says Martin. The ride will be about the people they are going to meet along the way who are facing their own battle.
“It’s about how hard they have to struggle everyday to get through a day. It’s really important that as communities and as a province that we all pull together.”
The Prairie Women ride shows that they are there behind survivors and those who are fighting cancer, says Martin. They do not have to do it alone, she says.
Raising awareness about treatment and equipment for all forms of cancer and fundraising is also an important part of the ride, says Martin.
According to the Canadian Cancer Society Canadian Cancer Statistics 2017 publication, prepared with Statistics Canada, Public Health Agency of Canada, and provincial and territorial cancer registries, there were an estimated 206,300 new cancers cases in Canada in 2017 with 25.5 per cent of cases in women being breast cancer.
