How this year’s mud run will cap a three-year major health fundraiser

Joining the 2026 CIBC Run for Our Lives Mud Run will mean moving the NWT’s biggest hospital closer to a major $600,000 fundraising goal and helping to upgrade northern cancer care.

That’s the message from organizers with just under two weeks left to enter the mud run at early-bird rates.

The run – which you can also walk, jog or crawl – takes place at the Yellowknife Ski Club from 9am on Saturday, September 12.

The trails, which offer pristine cross-country skiing in winter, are turned into a boggy obstacle course by volunteers who drop soil, mush it into mud, and wheel out a variety of fun challenges.

Top fundraisers can win prizes ranging from Yeti mugs to Canadian North flights.

Proceeds will help the Stanton Territorial Hospital Foundation’s quest to provide a new breast ultrasound machine, two automated endoscope reprocessors (which clean and disinfect equipment used to look inside the body) and a colposcope examination chair (a colposcopy examines the cervix and vaginal wall).

“The Run for Our Lives has a current campaign of $600,000 for four pieces of cancer-related equipment. This is the third year of the campaign and we’re almost there,” said the foundation’s executive director, Patty Olexin-Lang. “We’re so close, and we will get there by the end of this year’s mud run.”

Until the end of Monday, August 31, adult entry (aged 18 or over) costs $50 and youth entry costs $25. From September 1, the entry fee increases to $100 for adults and $75 for youth. You can create a team, join a team or enter as an individual on the mud run’s website, where you can also make a one-off donation or donate to a specific person or team.

The event also needs volunteers, ranging from people to help create mud pits and set the course through to marshals who guide people around the trails or maintain order in the parking lot on the day.

“The main volunteer day is the Friday before, we can use lots of manual labour [to] pull out and set up all of the obstacles. We’re taking mud around in quads – well, dirt, and then making mud,” said Olexin-Lang.

“The courses are three and five-kilometre trails out at the ski club, and we need people all through at each obstacle, and there’s about 25 obstacles. That’s at least 25 to 30 people out on the course.”

The fundraising goal is simple, Olexin-Lang added. Investing in better equipment for NWT cancer care means “more people not having to go south” to get the treatment they need.

The $600,000 fundraiser began ahead of the 2024 mud run and continued last year. Each mud run brings in a three-figure sum, while the campaign has also benefited from other donations.

This year, raising $150 or more will earn you a mud run shirt. Raise upward of $500 and you’ll also get a Yeti bottle or portable cell phone charger. More than $2,000 adds a Yeti cooler or $350 gift card to a local business.

The top adult fundraiser above $2,500 gets a Canadian North return trip for two to Edmonton. The top youth fundraiser above $1,000 wins a $300 Canadian Tire gift card. There are also team prizes, including a “best dressed” award.

“We’ve had Halloween costumes all matching. We’ve had family teams of pirates. Start thinking now about your costumes,” said Olexin-Lang.

Food and drinks will be available on race day. There’s an area to shower off the mud once you finish the course. (Even Cabin Radio has completed prior mud runs, so it’s definitely achievable.)

“This partnership has really been a big part of the community for more than two decades now,” said Nicole LeBlanc, community general manager for CIBC Yellowknife.

“This event is is especially meaningful because the money raised here does stay in the North, which is so important.

“Cancer has touched almost everyone in some way, whether it’s family or friends, colleagues, or someone in the community. So we are incredibly proud to support this event.”