Terry Fox, Thirty Years Later

While driving the Trans Canada highway through Northern Ontario this month, I passed by the hamlet of Pearl where my mother grew up. Down the highway waited a monument honouring Terry Fox not far from where his cross Canada run was interrupted years before. As I drove, the lines of a haiku crept into my mind.

One-legged runner
Passing Pearl for the last time
Three decades removed

It was this awareness of the thirtieth anniversary of his run combined with a visit to my hometown that prompted a series of memories from 1980. Terry Fox’s story is well known, and there is no need to recount it all here. By adding some recollections from that year, I'm hoping it will add just a bit more insight into the impact he had on Canada all those years ago.

April 12, 1980: Terry Fox dipped his leg into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Newfoundland to begin his Marathon of Hope. His plan was to run a marathon a day in an attempt to raise a million dollars for cancer research. This fact was impressive enough, but what made it national news was that he had lost his right leg to cancer, so he would be running with an artificial limb. Living in Calgary at the time, I remember my father sharing the news of the run’s beginning. He also expressed reservations about the million dollar goal, wondering if people would be generous enough to donate a fraction of that amount.

April-August, 1980: Terry ran in relative anonymity through the eastern provinces and Quebec. Once he hit Ontario, more people went out to greet him and run beside him, culminating in a famous Toronto appearance where a number of celebrities joined him at a downtown rally. By the time my family made a summer trip to Thunder Bay, the anticipation about his pending arrival was building and people were making plans to line the highway for his run. Sitting in my grandparents’ small rural home in Pearl, I regretted that we would be back in Calgary before his arrival.

Late August, 1980: As a gathering of hockey parents and their children wound down on a warm Prairie evening, Fox’s run came up in conversation. Before long, us boys were running a circuit in the backyard laughing and singing "Run Terry run, you've got a lot of people behind you." Unfortunately, we were also imitating his distinctive gait. The adults quickly expressed their displeasure and we stopped, chastened by the awareness of our own insensitivity.

September 1, 1980: We received the news that Terry’s run had stopped just short of Thunder Bay. Soon after, we learned that the cancer had spread to his lungs. This news, and Terry’s resilience in the face of it did something that his run could not--it touched the hearts of Canadians. The donations started pouring in as people began to make up for their initial skepticism and as a gesture of support for the man who talked more about his concern for young children with cancer than his own plight. Twenty three million dollars later, Terry had not only smashed his initial goal, but he had managed to raise a dollar for every Canadian.

June 28, 1981: Terry passed away at the age of 22, but not before making a deep impression on the lives of Canadians. Without doubt, he is a Canadian hero, and you would find no greater consensus in the country about his status compared to any other single Canadian who has ever lived.

July 20, 2010: Thanks to the Terry Fox Foundation, close to half a billion dollars have been raised. You can keep that total rising by making a donation here. Every September runs are held in his memory in a number of countries and countless schools across Canada. For more information about a run in your area, try this link. A plethora of books and two movies about Terry are widely available. For a more recent effort, watch for basketball star Steve Nash's Into the Wind, which premieres in September.