Future leaders of the Bermuda Regiment returned to the Island yesterday following a “gruelling” ten days of training in Canada.A total of 31 soldiers and staff from the Junior Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) cadre participated in the exercise at the Canadian armed forces training base in Meaford, Ontario.The cadre endured “cold and rain [while] rappelling down sheer cliff faces and forced marches across rough terrain” while there.Pte Handreth McGowan, 24, a mother-of-two from Pembroke and a nurse in civilian life, was the only woman soldier on the trip.She said: “I was treated just the same as everybody else — just one of the guys. The walking and the cold were the hardest — it was freezing. But if you can keep going through that, you can cope with anything, which is useful in civilian life too.”The group learned a lot, Pte Kallon Simons said.“We had a lot of deep tank tracks we had to walk through — it was probably a ten-mile march every time. It was pretty gruelling. A lot of people wanted to give up because of the sentry duty because it was cold at night, but we all got through it.”Lance Corporal Kenton Trott, 27, helped train the soldiers, most of whom only finished recruit camp in January.He said: “For a lot of them, it was their first time off the Island for training and to give them something new and exciting was good.“They had a lot of rainy nights and hot and cold days, but they turned out a good cadre.”Anyone interested in volunteering with the Regiment should telephone 238-1045 or visit www.bermudaregiment.bm.