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PADDLERS
It can be hard to find words to describe the feeling that comes from sharing a boat with so many inspirational paddlers. But we asked several of our members to try. Here are their stories.
Bev Nowotczynski
In November 2022, I was attending a Breast Cancer conference in St. John’s. I had recently finished chemotherapy, my hair was just beginning to grow back, and I was trying to figure out who the “new me” was. Cancer changes you—sometimes in ways you never expect, and sometimes for the better.
That day, I stopped at the Avalon Dragons' information table. They were there to share their story and invite survivors to learn about their team. On a bit of a whim, I signed up for their “Try It Day.”
I’ve never been someone who did a lot of physical activity, so I even surprised myself when I showed up at Octagon Pond for that Try It Day. From the moment I climbed into the dragon boat, I was hooked. I felt a little intimidated at first—I had never been in a dragon boat before—but when I looked around, I saw a boat full of incredible women, many older than me, all breast cancer survivors. Watching them paddle that large boat across the pond with confidence and joy was inspiring. You could see how much they loved it, and I wanted to be part of that.
Since that Try It Day, I’ve paddled with the Avalon Dragons every season. Twice a week, I’d finish work, grab my paddle, and head to the pond. Any stress I carried with me was left on the water. After an hour of practice, I’d step out of the boat feeling strong, alive, and empowered.
We all come to the Avalon Dragons with our own stories, but we share a deep connection—one that extends to our paddles as we move together, striving for perfect timing and unity. Through this team, I’ve gained a new group of friends who will be with me for life. We support one another, celebrate each other’s victories, and understand one another in ways only survivors can.
I am beyond proud to be part of the Avalon Dragons. This team has given me strength, confidence, friendship, and a renewed sense of purpose. It has helped me find myself again—and for that, I am forever grateful. (2026) Year Joined: June 2023
Marie-Anne Hudson
Sou'west breast! When the Avalon Dragons women were building and launching the first Dragon Boat on Octagon Pond in NL, in 2008, I was planning my future with my new husband. Always my greatest support. I wore my signature Sou'wester on my wedding day!
Cancer had touched people close to us and took some closest to us, such as our "little warrior Maureen" (my sister in law). Maureen was a woman full of hope and dreams - inspirational and a force. She conquered breast cancer, but was taken by a rare form of brain cancer!
In 2017, I lost my hearing - essentially overnight. It was profound and very devastating! I felt claustrophobic and isolated. I wasn't sure there would be a way forward. It changed me! I got involved with the hearing loss community and learned to navigate a new way of being.
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In fall of 2023, things changed yet again, with a breast cancer diagnosis. Better prepared for devastating, life altering news - I set a plan in place to navigate a change in course... armed with my late mother's life motto - Don't quit/ jamais quitter, I signed up for yoga in 2024 and, by chance, was introduced to a Dragon. I reached out to Avalon Dragons and got in a boat in June of 2025. I was immediately welcomed and encouraged, every step of the way - even my signature sou'wester was welcomed on the boat! (2026) Year Joined: 2025
Jodie Rice
I first heard about the Avalon Dragons from a post on Facebook in a local breast cancer support group. It was a call out to put a team together for the annual Paddle in Paradise dragon boat festival. This was the first I had heard about it. I love being active and being on the water so I signed up for the team! Then I was told about “Try It” day, where I could try dragon boating for the first time. I missed the try-it day due to a bad knee but the team invited me to join a practice during the following week. The team was so welcoming and encouraging that once I took part in that practice I knew I was hooked!
The team has helped me evolve as a person by showing me that power and pride of being part of a team. Before the dragons, I competed in bodybuilding as an individual and hadn't been part of a team since my school years. Now I know that there is nothing better than being part of a team. Especially a team of strong inspirational women.
In 2023 I was voted in as Chair of the Communications Committee. During that time I stepped out of my comfort zone to talk and represent the team on local radio stations and television. I am a believer that sometimes you have to do things that make you uncomfortable in order to grow as a person. Today I still sit on the Board of Directors as Vice-Chair and will continue to contribute to the team both on and off the water.
Beside my first paddle, my most memorable moment as an Avalon Dragon was at the 2024 Paddle in Paradise when we won a race against team Magic Wok. It was such an amazing feeling for the entire team and coaches. Proof that all our training and practice had paid off and that a group of women who have survived breast cancer (or any cancer for that matter) can do anything they put their minds to, of course with the help of our amazing coaches.
The Avalon Dragons have supported me both personally and professionally. The team is the support group that I never knew I needed. It is hard to explain but they just get it and I have made some life long friends because of it. The team has helped me professionally by giving me confidence to put myself out there which resulted in me volunteering as co-coordinator for the Government of Canada Workplace Charitable Campaign at DFO in 2024 and 2025.
My current goal and aspirations with the team are to be my best self and team member as we prepare to travel to France for IBCPC festival, an international breast cancer paddler dragon boat festival. I am also planning and training to try out for the Canadian National BCP team in 2027 to celebrate my 50th birthday.
My advice to anyone who has received a breast cancer diagnosis and is considering joining the Avalon Dragons would be to just go for it! Do not be intimidated, we were all new at some point and we are all still learning. You can expect to be welcomed, supported and feel a sense of pride. The Avalon Dragons are more than just an awesome dragon boat team, the Avalon Dragons is a sisterhood, the silver lining to a breast cancer battle and the most fun you’ll have on and off the pond.
If I had to describe my time with the Avalon Dragons in one word it would be pride. Pride I feel for myself and proud of my teammates. Proud of our contribution and involvement in our communities. I cannot imagine not being an Avalon Dragon, I am a dragon for life. (2026) Year joined: June 2022
Sharon Foster
I am a 24 year cancer survivor, wife, nurse and mother of two. I love the water. I grew up next to the water in Springdale and being around it brings me peace. I love being around, in or on it so dragon boating is a perfect fit for me. I discovered the Avalon Dragons in 2008 while walking around Octagon Pond in my hometown of Paradise and decided I would join that next season. However, that wasn’t to be as I was dealt another round with cancer. In 2009 I was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer. Cancer spread to my liver and once again I had to go through treatment. After completing chemo I made a decision to get myself healthy and strong for as long as I could to help keep this disease at bay. Dragon Boating was once again calling me.
I joined the team in 2011 and it has brought me not only the fitness and health benefits of exercise, but the connection of sisterhood that most don’t experience. Everyone in our boat has a connection of lived experience that masks a team more than just that. It’s a family of people lifting each other up through the rough times and cheering each other on during the great times.
One of my most memorable moments was competing in an international breast cancer dragon boat festival in Sarasota, Florida. There were survivors from all over the world and I was chosen as one of our team's representatives for the on water flower ceremony. Sitting in that boat surrounded by people from everywhere, there was no need for explanation. These were my sisters and you could feel it.
I’ve certainly become stronger and more confident as a result of being a part of this team. I’ve pushed myself to limits I’ve never thought I would and have been so proud to do so. (2026) Year joined: 2011
Karen Pennell
There’s no cure for lymphedema*. It can be very, very uncomfortable. Some days my arm feels very, very heavy. I try to get as much dragon boating in as I can. It makes me feel better all over, but it really makes my arm feel better.
I wear my compression sleeves 12 hours a day. The only time I didn’t was at a wedding this summer in Ontario when it was nearly 40 degrees – just too hot. Luckily, there aren’t so many people like me – having it in both arms.
After my surgery, I did the post-op exercises but probably didn’t do enough – not moving my arms as much as I should have. I was so afraid to move my arms the way I should. I was told I would never be able to do gardening and all sorts of stuff. That isn’t the right information. Possibly, I wouldn’t have been so affected if I hadn’t limited my movement.
For the first couple of years after my surgery, even with the compression sleeve, my arms kept getting bigger, bit-by-bit. The hospital measured my arms every six months, so I knew exactly how much they were increasing. Then I heard about dragon boating. In the spring of 2008, I joined the team and my arms have stopped getting bigger since then. Dragon boating has really helped. In fact, sometimes after practice or after a race, my arms actually decrease in size to the point where the sleeves get loose and fall down. Once when they fell down twice during a practice, team members joked ‘your lymphedema is cured!’
When our coach had those sessions on Thursday nights when we had to work really, really hard, I had the best sleeps of my life. On a timing drill, when we had to pause the oar in the air before hitting the water, my arm felt really good. At the festival we attended this summer in Peterborough, with six races in one day, my arms felt really, really good. Who knows how much of it is psychological. I do feel better after I’m out there. That mixture of friendship and exercise, it always makes me feel better.
*Some or all of the lymph nodes in the underarm are removed during breast cancer surgery to determine if the cancer has spread, and if so, to what extent. This helps determine what further treatment is needed. Radiation is an often-used treatment. Both can lead to lymphedema, a chronic swelling of the arm. A compression sleeve can help to keep the swelling down. Lymphedema is very uncomfortable and can lead to an uncontrolled infection in the affected limb. Survivors were typically told to limit upper body exercise. In 1996, Dr. Don McKenzie in Vancouver studied the effects of vigorous upper body exercise on lymphedema and found dragon boating helpful in prevention and relief of symptoms. The results were so positive that breast cancer survivors worldwide have enthusiastically embraced the sport.
Jill Moores
When I was diagnosed with cancer, I thought my life was ending. And until I joined dragon boating, I was essentially in a survivor mode. Now, I’m ready to embrace life, where before I was just surviving it.
I’m not a group person. I’ve always been very much a loner. Joining was a huge stretch for me. But I’ve found so much support and inspiration in the boat, it motivates me to be a better person and a better dragon. It’s inspired me to run and go to the gym. I feel healthier now because I’m more physically fit. Not just physically, but mentally and emotionally. You feel healthier so you eat better too. I’m looking forward to boot camp and doing some cross-training this winter, like snow shoeing, so when I get back in the boat, I’ll be in the best condition I can be.
The thing about dragon boating is that there’s so much inspiration in the boat. You can’t do it alone. To get that boat to move, you have to do it together. It’s sort of a metaphor for life. We have something going on here that’s extraordinary – on so many levels.
When you’re paddling and your paddle grabs the water and you literally lift the boat out of the water and it glides, the moving is part of the exhilaration. When you do it, it’s phenomenal. It’s a passion for me. I feel so strongly about what we’re doing out there. Words are just inadequate.
The passion I feel about dragon boating is the passion I want to inspire in the kids I teach. I don’t want them to go through life without feeling a passion for what they’re doing.
Marie Elliott
After spending a year and a half to build a dragon boat, a broken arm from a fall on slippery rocks in Swift Current wasn’t going to keep Marie Elliott from participating in the Awakening the Dragon launch ceremony. In fact, she was in the first boatload (even though she wasn’t able to paddle) as the beautifully crafted wooden boat pulled away from the dock on Octagon Pond that sunny Saturday in September of 2008.
Marie was one of the over 50 breast cancer survivors who built the dragon boat. “I didn’t know much about tools or know anything about boat building, but when I heard a group of women were planning to build a dragon boat, I got interested,” Marie remembers. “After the first workshop, I was hooked and wanted to learn everything I could.”
For 18 months, they met three nights a week and Sunday afternoons under the tutelage of naval architect Bruce Whitelaw.
“We started with drawings on paper and piles of wood and after several months, it started to take shape. We learned how to use a variety of tools ranging from planes to band saws and circular saws,” Marie explains.
After completing the keel, the builders proudly etched their names into it. Marie says the whole experience was very therapeutic and she has formed lifelong bonds with her teammates. “We came together with a common bond; we were all breast cancer survivors and we all wanted to work together to conquer the dragon.”
Since then, Marie and the team have travelled to three dragon boat festivals. She hopes it won’t be long before a festival will be hosted in Paradise. Marie says she would highly recommend dragon boating to other breast cancer survivors as it truly changed her life.
Marie’s husband Neil has been by her side every step of the way. He has even become an integral part of the team by furnishing and operating the support boat at many practice sessions.
“We plan to work this winter on dragon heads and tails and a ceremonial drum to be used when we race. We’ve become accomplished builders, artisans, and paddlers and have discovered that life can be good, even after breast cancer diagnosis and treatment.”
Immortal Dragons
Breast cancer took them from us, but we will always treasure the memory of our strong and brave Avalon Dragons:
Christine Penney - age 55 - May 24, 2025
Christine Donovan - December 2024
Anne Marie Anonsen - age 72 - September 28, 2023
Peggy Dixon - age 65 - May 21, 2023
Beverley Anne Johnson - age 64 - February 18, 2023
Genevieve "Gen" Marie Bishop - age 67 - May 14, 2022
Diane Brennan-Campbell - age 62 - October 31, 2018
Joanie Elizabeth Bruce - age 67 - July 7, 2016
Dolores Hynes - age 51 - April 27, 2016
Linda Gail Noah - age 60 - Feb 21, 2013
Ruby Cook - age 67 - January 22 2012
Donna Marie Howell - age 53 - Sept 25, 2009