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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Every recovering addict has a story of the moment that put him or her on the road to wellness.

Brad Firth, also known as Caribou Legs, ran about 740 km from Fort Smith to Yellowknife in just over 10 days, arriving on Sept. 14. As a former crack cocaine addict, Firth aimed to raise awareness about addiction issues and share his story with Northerners. - photo courtesy of Valerie Conrad

For Brad Firth, now more widely known in the NWT by his running name Caribou Legs, that moment came in 2005 in Vancouver's Downtown East Side when he saw a poster for an upcoming marathon.

"I spent 20 years battling the addictions," said Firth. "I was living in a sober house and I saw a poster on a bus stop and it said the Bank of Montreal marathon was coming up in a couple of weeks. I said 'I'm going to run that' and I did."

Despite the toll drugs had likely taken on his body and his overall health, Firth did more than finish the run. He crossed the finish line 743rd out of a total of about 5,000 athletes who ran that day.

Firth was born and raised in Inuvik, where he lived until he was 22 years old. Although he smoked marijuana and drank as a teenager, he said he didn't find his drug of choice - crack cocaine - until he was 25 years old, well after he had drifted south.

"Eventually, it took over," he said of his drug use. "I became a full-blown crack cocaine addict and it wreaked havoc. I was a menace in my neighbourhood and in my society and it didn't look good for me.

"After a while, you just don't care. You lose your sense of dignity and you lose your sense of work. You feel so powerless. You feel so weak, you know? There's nothing left inside you.

"In my final days of using crack cocaine, I had to make a choice - do I want to go to prison or do I want to live?"

A couple of months after completing the Vancouver marathon, Firth relapsed, but he said that he could see the path to recovery - running competitively.

"Running and sobriety have a lot of the same things," he said. "There's commitment, desire, discipline."

Now that he has been clean and sober for a few years, Firth wanted to return North to share his story with the hope it can help start open dialogue about addictions here.

To that end, he ran 740 km from Fort Smith to Yellowknife from Sept. 4 to 14.

He ran roughly eight hours and averaged about 60 km per day, although each day was a little different.

On Sept. 13, Firth awoke determined to make it to Yellowknife before he slept again - a distance of about 100 miles, nearly four marathons.

One step at a time, he made the distance in 25 hours, arriving in the city at about 10:30 a.m. on Sept. 14.

He credits a small group of two runners, two cyclists and one flag car, who joined up with him about 20 km outside the city with helping him push through fatigue and make it to his destination.

"They really, really made it easier for me because I

was so tired," he said.

Throughout the run, Firth relied on the help of people along the way to drop his gear farther down the road or share a shower, a hot meal and a place to stay.

He said there was never a shortage of people stopping on the highway to give him a hug or a bottle of water and cheering him on.

"My running is my truth," he said of what drove him to run that far of a distance. "I came up with the notion of just sharing my strength and my hope of my resurrection. People want to know the truth and I want to share it."

The lack of outspoken role models promoting sobriety in the North was part of what motivated him to make the run, he said.

"It's an embarrassing topic for some people to admit. A lot of people can't handle that kind of stuff - admitting their defaults in their character," he said.

Fresh from his successful mission, Firth is determined to continue running throughout the North to spread his message. He aims to run the Sahtu this winter, and his overall goal is to run more than 4,400 km from Vancouver to Inuvik, by way of Alberta next May.

"The North is my home," he said. "I'm running to prove, not only to myself but to other people, that my addictions are behind me and I'm here to stay."

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