Young boy hopes accomplishment will inspire other youth

A 17-year-old boy originally from the Mistawasis First Nation is making history in another continent.

Brandon Sand was one of five youth chosen from around the world to participate in a gruelling 250-km run over six days in Bolivia across the Salar de Uyuni, the world’s largest salt flat.

He is also the first-ever Aboriginal student chosen to participate in the trek. It’s the fourth chapter in the program Impossible2Possible, which began in September 2009 and aims to inspire and educate youth through adventure learning, and inclusion and participation in expeditions. It was founded by marathon runner Ray Zahab.

Sand wanted to participate mostly to say he could do it, but also to be a role model.

“Just to be able to say I ran a marathon a day for a week is pretty big itself. And, to show Aboriginal youth ... that even if you’re from a reserve, you can get out there and do amazing things like I’m doing right now. There’s no limits to what you can do out there.”

Sibling rivalry is what pushed Sand to run in the first place: he wanted to beat his brother at the 100-metre dash. Later, when he was at the same school, Oskayak High School in Saskatoon, with his sister, he joined the running club with her. He now runs regularly with coach Jackie Lavalee.

Lavalee said the amount of growth she has seen in Sand over the past couple of years is tremendous.

“When I first met him, I think I was teaching English at the time, and most of our communication was back and forth through journals,” she explained. “He slowly started to open up to me and started to reveal more and more of his story, and the more you learn about his story and how much he’s overcome in his life, he’s definitely an inspiration and has persevered through a lot of diversity. He’s an amazing role model at our school for sure.”

Sand doesn’t like to talk about the tragedy, which forcefully relocated him to Saskatoon from Mistawasis when he was 12. But, he says running helps him through it.

“Whenever I’m stressed or whenever the stress of that comes back, I go for a run and it helps clear my mind.”
The first day of the run was May 15. Sand expected it to be tough, but mostly mentally.

“I guess when I feel like giving up, I just think of all the people who said I couldn’t do it...not personally but ‘it’s not possible to run a marathon a day a week.’ I think, ‘Well I can do that. I’ll prove them wrong. I’ll show them it is possible for a 17-year-old Aboriginal boy to run a marathon a day for a week in 12,000 feet elevation.’”
Sand’s inspiration is his parents.

“I hope to try to be a big influence in the Aboriginal community, just to give them hope because I know how tough it is growing up on a reserve,” said Sand.