January 7, 2007 – Jessie Krejcik is setting out to do something in 2008 that no 13-year-old girl has ever done before: she’s going for her Coureur des Bois gold bar in the Canadian Ski Marathon (CSM). For the uninitiated, this means xc skiing 160km over two days carrying a minimum 5kg backpack and camping out under the stars on the night of Saturday, February 9. The distance doesn’t seem to faze this high school student; she’s done all of that before in 2005 and 2006, even though it necessitates serious training every weekend once the ski season starts in mid December. But she does admit to having apprehensions about the camp out.

“In 2008, I will be camping out under the stars (bivouacking) for the first time. I’m a little nervous about that. All that the organizers give the campers is hay and a fire. You have to dress very warmly for the camp-out and always try to stay warm. We won’t have tents, so the technique is to dig a trench in the snow (to sleep in) and cover ourselves with hay (to stay warmer).”

“While skiing, I try to set many goals in my head; I’m thinking of making the next checkpoint, of food, and staying warm. It’s usually minus 30 C when I’m skiing the marathon. And I’m hoping to ski a little faster on the first day so that I get to the campsite earlier and can thus get a better spot close to the fire. You can’t do anything the next day unless you get a decent night’s sleep.”

The second daughter from a very outdoorsy family, Jessie first stepped onto skis at age two. Skiing just seemed “to click” and on that first occasion, and her parents recount how Jessie got mad when they eventually told her to stop that first day. Jessie joined the Viking Ski Club at age four, skipping the initial Bunnyrabbit program and going instead right into the more advanced Jackrabbit program.

Sometimes for lessons, she skied 8km from her parent’s cottage, did her five-hour lesson, and then skied back to the cottage. By the age of six, she skied 500km over the season. At age 7, she entered her first CSM. By age 9, Jessie skied seven of the 10 sections at a reasonable speed. Her father suggested that she try skiing the entire 10 sections in 2005, which she did to become the youngest girl ever to complete the 160km distance.

CSM Event Manager, Jordan Bridal, noted that in 2005 the youngest boy to complete the CSM as a Coureur des Bois was 12-year-old Daniel Moore (editor’s note: a friend of Jessie’s). In 2007, Bill Pollock (71) and Sharon Crawford (62) were the oldest man and woman to finish as a Coureur des Bois. (The CSM added that their database is not designed to easily verify the youngest and oldest finishers over the years and only partial information is available at present.)

As a point of comparison, a longtime member of Canada’s national ski team, Chris Blanchard, first completed the CSM at age 11 around 1983. He went on to compete at the Nagano Winter Olympics. (note: Blanchard, Krejcik, Moore, and Pollock are all members of Montreal’s Viking Ski Club)

Phil Gold, Executive Director of McGill University’s Clinical Research Centre applauds Jessie’s efforts. Louise Dery Goldberg, President of the Montreal Children’s Hospital Foundation echoes this sentiment. Ditto for Sheila Kussner, the Founder and Chairman of Hope and Cope, who has raised an estimated $50 million for cancer research. And the praise is coming in from outside of Montreal. Jill Osborne, Development Officer at the Children’s Health Foundation in London, Ontario exclaims, “I’m still marvelling at the amazing feat that Jessie is taking on!”

In January, Jessie’s Member of Parliament (MP), Marlene Jennings, will get up in the Canadian House of Commons and ask every MP to donate to their children’s hospital of choice. And Air Canada-where Jessie’s mom works-is likely to ask all its employees to contribute.

Jessie herself remains nonchalant about the attention: “I like to ski. I don’t do it for the kilometres. And if it’s for a good cause, then why not?”

There are an estimated 10,000 kids across Canada with cancer and 100,000 in the USA. Put another way, one in 330 children will develop cancer by the age of 20. And, although the survival rate is steadily increasing, one quarter of children will die within five years from the time of diagnosis. Cancer thus remains the number one disease killer of North American children – more than cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy, asthma and AIDS combined.

For more information on Jessie’s efforts or about how to make a donation, please click here.