Teen cadet battling cancer completes 160-kilometre, 4-day march with Canadian Forces

A Portage la Prairie teen broke new ground as the first Canadian cadet to complete a gruelling, four-day military training march ... while fighting cancer.

Alex Wishart, 16,walked 40 kilometres a day for four days as part of the Nijmegen March, which started in 1909 as a military exercise and has become an annual event in the Netherlands that Canadian military teams take part in each year.

Wishart was the first Canadian cadet to have ever marched alongside soldiers in this event. This year, the four-day march attracted 42,036 participants between July 18 and 21, and38,409 completed the gruelling trek. This year, 6,000 otherCanadian soldiers and civilians made the journey.

• 4 days in Nijmegen: Marching to fulfil my grandfather's dream

"In the military contingent itself, when I first arrived everybody was like, 'Why is there a cadet here? There shouldn't be a cadet here. This is weird.' But I can completely understand that. There's never been a cadet. And then people got to know me, they got to know my story, and I was very welcomed by everybody," said Wishart.

The whole time Wishart was walking, he was undergoing treatment for leukemia and needed to take pills every day.

He was diagnosed when he was 14 years old. While undergoing treatment, the idea of the march worked its way into his mind.

'Showing myself that I was better'

"I guess I just saw it when I was younger, well, more in the treatment, as a way of getting back and showing myself that I was better and that I was back to my normal self," he said.

At first, Wishart was denied permission to make the trip.

"You have a 14-year-old kid in treatment and you're having these high 30 C kind of weather and you just don't want to take the risk with that and I can't blame them."

Wishart's dad wrote a letter to the minister of defence and shortly after, Wishart's wish got the green light.

He started training, hiking back and forth with a pack from his houseto the airport in Portage la Prairie to prepare.

While marching overseas, he foundpeople were still thankful to see the Canadians walking through their country. One moment along the last five-kilometrestretch of the march through the city of Nijmegen sticks out in Wishart's memory.

"About three or four kilometres in, near the end, I remember this one dude, this one guy, and he shouts out, thanking Canada for liberating us, and that really struck me, that really just told me why they were thankful for us."

Canadian soldiers played a major role in liberating the Netherlands from German occupation in 1945.

Wishart said his health is improving and his cancer is in remission.