INUVIK
Mike Harlow might be the poster child for making lemonade when life hands you lemons.

Inuvik's Mike Harlow has launched a fundraising campaign for the Children's First Centre. He's planning to paddle in the Yukon Quest race next month, and is looking for people to donate money to the cause. - photo courtesy of Mike Harlow

Two years ago, Harlow, who works for the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, was heading south on the Dempster Highway in pursuit of fulfilling his dream to compete in the legendary Yukon Quest paddling race.

A veteran paddler, he had borrowed a canoe from the new East Three Canoe Club, packed up his four-wheel-drive, and took to the highway in June 2013.

Disaster struck just outside of Eagle Plains in the Yukon, when he rolled the Toyota 4-Runner vehicle multiple times, destroying it as well as the canoe.

"I had trained properly with my paddling partner, had prepared all the food, gotten all the gear together and had given myself lots of time to get to Whitehorse," he wrote on his website. "We were going to try and finish the 715-km Yukon River Quest - the longest marathon canoe race in the world."

Now he is preparing for another challenge.

"I was pretty lucky," Harlow recalled during an interview May 15. "I had one cut on a finger that bled all over, and I suffered a shoulder injury."

Luckily, it wasn't long before other motorists came by to assist him. Even more fortunately, those people turned out to be medical professionals who gave him some initial treatment.

He hitched a ride back to Eagle Plains with them. Upon his arrival, staff at the motel and gas bar there were appalled at his condition, Harlow said, although he kept reassuring them he was (mostly) OK.

After some initial assessment there, he was medevaced to Dawson City where he was treated and released.

Knowing his chance of participating in the race as a competitor was over, Harlow nonetheless decided to fly to Whitehorse where he worked as a volunteer.

Needless to say, though, the thought of returning to the race never faded from his mind.

That's why he went into training months ago, preparing to tackle the race as a solo competitor, but fate intervened again and gave him even more of a purpose.

Following the March 1 flooding at the Children's First Centre, Harlow decided to launch a crowd-funding campaign that combined the Yukon Quest with making some money to cover the damage at the centre.

Harlow said he's a member of the board of directors for the Children First Society, and when the scope of the damage to the centre became clear, he decided he had to do something about it.

"So I had seen some of the other funding campaigns going on here in town and there must be five or six of them," he said. "Some had done really well, so I thought I'd give it a try."

His initial target was $2,500, but it already seems likely that he's going to exceed that.

Harlow blew past the $2,500 mark over the long weekend. In an update on his website, he said "this weekend was great. We've surpassed the original goal, but might as well keep going with more than a month to go before the race!

"The new goal is $5,000. Let's see if we can raise that in the same amount of time as the $2,952 already donated."

Even with insurance covering most of the damage to the centre, Harlow said the centre is likely to face a bill of at least $100,000 beyond those costs. That's going to be a hard hit for the centre, which was already struggling somewhat with its finances.

"Picking up the pieces after the storm has thrown a big financial monkey wrench into CFC operations which could threaten its future. At last count it looks like the bill is going to be around $100,000 above what insurance will cover, which is a huge hit for this non-profit organization."

Anyone wishing to donate should go to his website, which is linked to the Children First Society website as well.

He will be accepting donations up to race time in the third week of June. People can donate by whatever means they like, including a lump sum.

Harlow joked that some people might want to donate by the kilometre, or even bet whether or not he makes it to the race this time.

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