Barbara Karasiuk

The Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto is one of the top five cancer research centres in the world. Its annual Walk to Conquer Cancer fundraiser brings thousands of people together for 25-kilometre hikes, each with the same goal: to conquer cancer in our lifetime.

Two in five Canadians will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their life, and it’s estimated 241 people die each day from the disease, according to the Canadian Cancer Society.

It’s stats like these, plus her sister’s breast cancer diagnosis, that motivated Caledon’s Barbara Karasiuk, now 79, to challenge herself to her first fundraiser walk in 2003. At the time, it was a two-day, 60-kilometre event, with an overnight stopover in Downsview. 

“Happily, organizers quickly realized that 60 kilometres was too much. The walks today are much more manageable and can be done closer to home, or even virtually,” Barbara says.

Since that first walk, Barbara has participated in 19 more, volunteering as a team leader. In that role, she says, “It’s my job to raise funds for Princess Margaret by bringing a group of like-minded people together who will take up the Walk to Conquer Cancer challenge.”

Each year she names her group based on a theme. This past September her band of 32 hikers was called No Regrets. It was the motto of Caron Shepley, a beloved local yoga teacher and animal lover who lost her battle with cancer just over a year ago. Barbara’s group raised nearly $18,500, walking a trail through The Pulpit golf course in Caledon.

Another year, Barbara, who grew up in Saskatchewan, called her team the Roughriders, in honour of her favourite football team. “We were proud to wear pink ball caps donated by the team,” she says.

And the year her team travelled to Calgary for the walk, they were dubbed Rambling Roses, sporting blingy Stetsons and taking in the famous Calgary Stampede. 

Barbara’s favourite theme was the Calendar Girls in 2006, when the 12 participating women produced and sold a calendar featuring mildly risqué photographs of each of them. “My family knows that I want that calendar photo of me featured at my funeral,” she says with a laugh. 

Fundraising efforts such as the annual walk are critical to the ongoing work of cancer researchers and clinicians who continue to push toward a cure. Thanks to their efforts, the five-year cancer survival rate has jumped from 25 per cent in the 1940s to 64 per cent today.

Now, along with her sister, Barbara is also one of those survivors, making her support of Princess Margaret even more personal. “I will never forget that the hospital was there for me when I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2017,” she says. 

Barbara had to take a break from the walks during her treatment, but was back at it three years later in 2020. To date she and her teams have raised $700,000 for cancer research.

“Each person who has done the walk with me has made a significant contribution, and each has become a friend. Through the shared hugs, laughs, tears and blisters, we haven’t forgotten that our focus is to conquer cancer in our lifetime,” she says.