Meet the dragon boating team
Some of the boat builders look like they are headed for a night on the town, not about to be sprinkled with sawdust. Retired school teacher Sylvia Flood is 63, and she wears gold hoop earrings and lipstick as she wields a router in one hand and safety glasses in the other. She's had cancer beaten for 14 years.
"To think that at this stage of our lives we are not only going to paddle our own boat, but we are going to build it," she says with a big grin. "It is going to have far more meaning to us to know that we can go around and brag that we are building our boat, step by step."
New opportunities for a fresh start
Retired physiotherapist Jane Brown, 63, is intrigued by angles and movement. She touches the top of the wooden structure and explains: "We planed the edge so precisely that it's the correct angle. My father built some small sailboats recreationally, and boat building is probably in my blood, being a Newfoundlander, but I never thought for a moment this opportunity would arise."
Most of the women had never handled a power tool. "I used a jigsaw for the first time and I hope that the part I did doesn't cause the boat to sink," says Dolores Hynes, 42, an ovarian cancer survivor who asked to be included in the team. Dolores was working in Ottawa as a project manager for the government when she was diagnosed four years ago.
A job for every skill set
Another woman discovered she could transfer her sewing skills to the shop. "Taking measurements for sewing is like boat building: if you're precise with one, you're precise with the other, and that accuracy is reflected in the end product," says Donna Howell, 51, who has glasses and curly brown hair. She had breast cancer in 2003 and discovered in 2005 that it had metastasized to the bone. She is tested regularly now. "I live life in three-month intervals and make the most of everything I can in those three months," she says.
Donna's latest tests showed that the cancer had returned, and she went back on chemotherapy. She still comes to the shop to build, though not as often, and wearing a head scarf. "You can do things," she says. "You have to take the initiative and take your life in your hands and make the most of every minute. You have to make every moment count."
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