Marie-Hélène Marcoux and Maxime Yelle: And I Slept on the Lake (Saint-Jean)
For some, sport is a way of life. You run, push, pedal, sweat, and start over. For others, sport is a lifeline—perhaps the only way to rebuild, to rediscover self-worth, and regain lost confidence.
At 14, Marie-Hélène Marcoux from Pointe-des-Cascades was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, the cancer that creeps into lymph nodes and throws families into turmoil. Treatment followed. Then remission. In that silent desert, a beacon of hope—the On the Tip of the Toes Foundation—entered her life.
Founded in 1996, the foundation organizes therapeutic adventure expeditions for teens living with cancer and now extends to young adults under 29. Marie-Hélène joined one such expedition to Ellesmere Island in the Arctic Ocean, trekking for 10 days with 24 others, including a dozen young cancer survivors. Ten days. A new life.
“It changed the course of my life,” she reflects, now in her 30s. “It gave me my wings back. It reminded me I was still capable of facing challenges.”
She loved the experience so deeply that she now sits on the foundation’s board of directors.
One Maxime and Two Marios Later
In 2012, her story took a new twist—Marie-Hélène met Maxime Yelle, a man just slightly older who had battled the exact same cancer at the same time. It sounds made-up, but it’s true. One key difference: Marie discovered the foundation during remission. Maxime, treated in the adult system, missed out on those adventures.
Marie introduced him to the foundation. He listened. Time passed. Now the couple is getting married—just months after completing the Double Challenge of the Two Marios, an epic journey across the frozen Lac Saint-Jean in snowshoes each February to raise funds for the foundation.
Three days. 34 kilometers. 40 participants. $55,000 raised. A small tent. Courage. And -48°C on the thermometer.
“It strips you back to the basics,” says Marie-Hélène, who spent two nights on the frozen lake. “I dreamed of my bed, a heat source, a chair. You really push your limits.”
Her partner Maxime hit his own wall.
“My back hurt. I was exhausted. I just wanted to quit. But then I saw Marie struggling and I remembered—I beat cancer, I went through chemo, radiation, every emotion you can feel. I told myself: ‘No way, we keep going.’ We got up and pushed on.”
A Survival Guide
When they speak about the expedition, their eyes light up, their words flow, and their thoughts drift to the past—teen years when others discovered themselves while they battled illness.
“Getting sick at that age makes you dependent,” says Marie-Hélène. “You feel different. You can’t keep up with your peers.”
That’s precisely what the foundation seeks to counter by surrounding young people with others who’ve walked a similar path.
“Your mind gets used to being restricted,” says Maxime. “From illness and medication, you build mental walls. But your body wants to go, it’s able. That’s what the foundation helps young people realize. They break those walls—and come out transformed.”
We’ve long known sport as a path to identity. Now we can see it as a tool for survival.