Northern News Services

Yellowknife (May 10/02) - The Inuvik Ride for Sight group held a meeting last Sunday to prepare for this year's annual run to cure blindness.

Newly-elected president Cyril Gregory says the group is on track to have one of their most successful campaigns ever.

Gregory has lived in Inuvik for 10 years and been on the ride for the past five years. He says he is enjoying the new position, but has been scrambling a little bit to keep up.

"It's my first go at it and it's confusing as hell," Gregory joked.

So far, he says, the ride is doing very well, with funds from coin boxes around town and monies earned from working local bingos and tending bar.

"We're quite a bit ahead of our forecast and where we were last year," he said.

The group has about 13 riders and he says there are about that many going along as support crew for the June 7-9 run. With spring coming late in the Delta this year, the destination is uncertain.

"We're hoping to go to Rock River (Yukon), but if the Peel River isn't in, we'll go to McPherson," he says. "If we can't get across the Mackenzie, we'll go to Campbell Creek or the Gwich'in camp."

He says the group always earns more per capita in Inuvik than any other riders in Canada.

He also says the group earns it. It's not easy negotiating two wheels through the deep gravel and dust on the Dempster.

"It's rough if you try to go to fast, but we have a ride captain who keeps a steady safe pace," he says. "The dust can be good or bad - hopefully we can get a little side wind that blows it out of our way."

Ride co-ordinator Joanne Whiteside says all the money raised goes to the Foundations for Fighting Blindness who are looking for cure for and to eliminate blindness.

"People giving pledges can be assured that 100 per cent of what is pledged goes straight into research," Whiteside says.

"The reason they can do that, is because the national organization of Ride for Sight has corporate sponsors for all the promotional material and advertising."

Three members of the group travelled over to Aklavik recently on the ice road as a bit of a promotion, but were met with some nasty weather.

Tom Menno was one of the riders who braved the elements on the 200 kilometre ice ride.

"It rained the night before and when we woke up it was still raining, but we figured we better do it because we might not get another chance," Menno says.

"The ice was okay, but in that slush, you kinda go where the bike goes."

"On the way over it turned into snow and then into blizzard," he said.

Over the next month, the Ride for Sight group will be blitzing friends and family for donations and seeking out corporate sponsors.

They will also be setting up a booth outside Northern on the last two weekends of May.