This Article was written by Marcie Miller for the Peninsula Daily News.

PORT ANGELES — “On the other side of fear you will find freedom,” Jack Ganster, 47-year-old cancer survivor, said recently, wearing a yellow shirt emblazoned with the Lance Armstrong “Live Strong” message.

The Port Angeles man lives the “freedom after fear” aphorism every day and is establishing a program to help other cancer survivors do the same.

Balance

Six years ago, he was running an outdoor gear store and spending every minute of his free time hiking, skiing, kayaking and enjoying life.

Then, while attending a football game at Qwest Field in Seattle, Nov. 2, 2003, he was struck by a seizure and rushed to Harborview Medical Center.

The diagnosis came swiftly: a brain tumor the size of a walnut lodged behind his ear in the left parietal lobe.

Over the next four months, Ganster underwent two surgeries and five weeks of radiation therapy. Regular MRIs show no sign of the cancer returning. …Continue Reading Freedom After Fear

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This article, was written
by Katherine Spiers,  and appeared on StandUp2Cancer.org

Inspired by a unique corner of the country in Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula, Jack Ganster created Survivor’s Outdoor Experience (SOE), an organization that gives people living with cancer a chance to find joy, and perhaps healing, in nature.

A naturally beautiful and diverse area, the setting of Ganster’s program includes a temperate rain forest on the western side that receives nearly twelve feet of rain every year, while the eastern, Seattle-facing side receives only about 25 inches.

Almost entirely rural, the peninsula features mountains, rivers and lakes surrounded by Puget Sound and the Pacific Ocean. It’s also home to Olympic National Park, a million-acre wilderness home to flora and fauna not found anywhere else in the world. Ganster has a lifelong love of the outdoors, but found special comfort in kayaking, hiking, and just being in the natural world after his brain cancer diagnosis in 2003. …Continue Reading StandUp2Cancer.org Article