Eileen Birdsong walks along the pathways near her Pleasanton, Calif. home.

WALNUT CREEK, Calif. — Eileen Birdsong has faced cancer three times over the past two decades, but she has never let it slow her down.

During eight months of radiation treatment for breast cancer in the mid-1990s, the Pleasanton, Calif., woman walked the 6-mile round trip to her doctor's appointments five days a week.

Two years ago, back home following surgery from esophageal cancer, she was walking as soon as she could, if only to the end of the block and back.

“It's not how much you do or how far you walk, doing some form of exercise is better than doing nothing,” says Birdsong, 82. “My doctors told me I survived because I had taken such good care of myself all my life through exercise and diet.”

Birdsong's can-do spirit revealed itself when she was a young woman in the 1950s, living and working in the Canadian Arctic with that country's Department of Defense. Birdsong, a native of Manitoba, was a dental assistant, supporting multinational military exercises at a base in Churchill, a town on the shore of Hudson Bay.

At the time, Canada and the United States feared a Soviet invasion via an Arctic route, so from September to May, the allies trained soldiers and pilots to fight in extreme weather.

Churchill is known for its autumn migration of polar bears and stunningly stark landscape of tundra and icebergs.

“We were above the tree line,” says Birdsong, who initially signed a one-year contract. For the six months of winter, she lived without sun. For the other six months, the sun shone all the time. And it was cold, with average January temperatures falling into the double digits below zero. “It was the coldest place I've ever been in.”

But Birdsong loved the place and the work and stayed for five years. When she wasn't providing dental services to soldiers, she was dispatched to take care of the teeth of Inuit and other natives.

These days, she also stretches every morning. Four times a week, she uses eight-pound weights to do a series of lifts to strengthen her upper body and to “get my blood going first thing in the morning.”Not only does the exercise make her feel better, she knows it's key to maintaining her independence.“I am thankful every day that I am able to be active,” she says, “and hopefully, in the process, encourage other seniors to get moving.”

Eileen Birdsong exercises daily with light weights and walks along the pathways near her Pleasanton, Calif., home. Birdsong has faced cancer three times over the past two decades, but she has never let it slow her down.