A local breast cancer survivor recently gave up all of her home comforts to complete a survival challenge in the Arctic, raising more than £5,000 for a Northern Ireland (NI) cancer charity in the process.

On Sunday, March 20, Laurine Lilley from Enniskillen joined a group of women from across NI to embark on the week-long 'Arctic Survival Sweden' challenge with Cancer Focus NI.

Although describing her Arctic experience as "amazing", now back in her Fermanagh home, Laurine has a new-found appreciation for the little things in life – such as electricity and running water.

"See, you had no home comforts at all – there was no electric, no central heating, no running water, so you had no showers and you only had candles for light," said Laurine, speaking to The Impartial Reporter about the challenge, which took place in Follinge, Sweden, some 100 miles south of the Arctic Circle.

As part of a team of nine, Laurine completed a week of Arctic survival activities, ranging from building shelters to making fires, aided by ex-Royal Marines Nigel and Dave.

For Laurine, the most challenging part was the cross-country skiing, which they did on the Monday.

"I've never skied before, so of course I fell on ice and hurt my arm – that's my bad arm, too," she said, explaining that during the fall, she suffered from ligament damage to the arm in which she has Lymphoedema, one of the side effects that cancer has left her with.

However, despite her injury, Laurine was determined to continue.

"I walked the rest of the way. I could still do stuff, but I was limited, and lucky enough I had plenty of painkillers with me," she said.

Later that day, the group started building one of their outdoor shelters to be used later in the week: a snow hole.

"A snow hole is where loose snow is all compacted. My job was to walk on top of it as three girls shovelled the snow," said Laurine, describing the activity as "fierce craic".

"You would've built that up to around 11ft high, then that takes three days to settle before it can be hollowed out."

Throughout the week, as well as skiing, the group travelled via various modes of transport associated with the Arctic, including snow mobiles and huskies.

They also slept in different types of accommodation, firstly staying in wooden houses, then progressing to tents with stoves, shelters which they hand-built from branches and sticks, and of course, the snow holes.

On the Thursday, it was determined that the snow holes were ready to be carved out.

"It took six hours to carve out," said Laurine, going on to explain that when they were sleeping in the snow hole, safety was paramount.

"You had to sleep with your head towards the entrance in case the snow hole would collapse in the middle of the night, so they [Dave and Nigel] would just be able to pull you out.

"But you were very safe, because they were ex-Royal Marines," she added.

On the last day, the group were treated to the use of a hot tub. But as this was an Arctic challenge, it was a little different from a spa.

"A snow blower was used to fill up the hot tub with snow and there was a fire that was lit at the side of it. The hot tub was ready in about four hours," said Laurine, noting that if the hot tub got too hot, they would just add more snow.

On completing the week-long challenge, Laurine left on a real high.

"It was an amazing experience. You just surprise yourself at how back to nature you can get. But I was glad to get home to get a shower," she added with a laugh.

Grateful for the support of the rest of the group, especially following her fall, Laurine said: "The girls were fantastic. You definitely do have to work as a team when you're out some place like that."

Through her GoFundMe page (see https://tinyurl.com/2p9xveb5), Laurine has raised more than £5,000 for Cancer Focus NI, with money still coming in. She wanted to thank everyone who donated.

"I think there's over £33,000 in total with Cancer Focus NI at the minute, which is great, because it's all staying in NI."