NDP Leader Todd Hardy will be returning home to the Yukon this afternoon.

'I'm pretty excited,' said Hardy from the Vancouver airport, where he was awaiting his plane in the morning. 'I think my wife is more excited.'

Hardy has been out of the territory since Aug. 9, when he was medevaced to St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver after being diagnosed with leukemia.

He has acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the type most commonly found in children. Only 20 per cent of the cases are found in adults, usually over the age of 50.

The timing of the diagnosis couldn't have been worse, with the end of the Yukon Party's mandate in government creeping up in November.

Then, despite Hardy's public statements he would like time to regain his strength and return to the territory before an election took place, and after a bedside visit in late August from Premier Dennis Fentie, who also received a briefing from Hardy's doctors, Fentie decided to drop the writ on Sept. 8.

'Considering his very difficult health situation, there's absolutely no guarantees even if we waited until Nov. 4, Mr. Hardy would be able to conduct a campaign,' Fentie said at the time. 'The decision he makes in regards to this will be his to make alone.'

Even with the illness, Hardy, 49, maintained he would continue to lead the NDP into the territorial election and run for re-election in his riding of Whitehorse Centre.

Though he has been in Vancouver for the first three weeks of the campaign, he has been conducting press conferences by speaker phone, while acting leader Steve Cardiff has been filling in the gaps where Hardy couldn't.

'We are all elated that Todd is coming back to Whitehorse as he said he would,' said Cardiff. 'He intends to continue taking an active role in the campaign, although his activities will be somewhat limited as he regains his physical strength under medical supervision.'

Hardy, however, said he intends to be quite involved during the last week leading into the Oct. 10 polling date. He is very much looking forward to taking part in the leaders' forum scheduled for next Thursday evening.

'Enough of this long distance phone call stuff,' he said.

The cancer, though, he admitted, has taken quite a lot out of him and he has lost a lot of muscle mass. He said he will have to pace himself during the final days of the election, while he starts to rebuild his strength.

Hardy had become increasingly frustrated during much of last week in hospital.

Off of chemotherapy, he was still being kept in the hospital without a return date from his doctors and waiting for test results to come back from the labs.

Hardy said he had a meeting with his doctors on Wednesday afternoon.

'We told them, We've got to have some dates. We've got to know what's happening,'' he said.

With the test results coming back and a new treatment course set, Hardy said, the doctors told him he could pack his bags and go home.

Hardy does not know when he will need to return to Vancouver. He will be continuing treatment at Whitehorse hospital where he will be receiving chemotherapy once a week.

Hardy was declared to be in full remission by his doctors on Sept. 7. The latest tests continue to show he is still in remission.

Doctors have also determined that his leukemia is not genetic, said Hardy, and is somehow connected to something in the environment he has come in contact with during his life time.

Hardy has lived in the Yukon since his teens and is active in karate and hockey.

A journeyman carpenter by trade, Hardy is a former business agent for local unions. He has also sat as a board member of Yukon College, the Yukon Energy Corp. and the Yukon Development Corp. and volunteered with the Council of Canadians and Habitat for Humanity.

Hardy first ran for political office successfully in the October 1996 election. He was narrowly defeated by then-Liberal Mike McLarnon in the 2000 vote when the Liberals swept to power, taking every seat in Whitehorse.

Hardy regained the Whitehorse Centre seat with an 82-vote margin in 2002.

Hardy's wife of 28 years, Louise, served as the Yukon's NDP Member of Parliament from 1997 to 2000. They have four grown children Janelle, Tytus, Tess and Lymond, and one grandchild, Ellazora.