48 Fun Facts About Terry Fox

What name was given to Terry Fox's 1980 run across Canada for cancer research?

Marathon of Hope began over his mother's objections: Betty Fox told him the plan was crazy, and he said he would run anyway. She later came round to backing it.

In which city was Terry Fox born in 1958?

Winnipeg was home only until 1966, when his father, a Canadian National Railway switchman, moved the family to British Columbia, the province Fox later set out to run home to.

In which British Columbia city did Terry Fox grow up after his family moved west?

Port Coquitlam is where he made his Grade 8 basketball team as the 19th of 19 players and got one minute on court all season. Two years later he was a starting guard.

Terry Fox was diagnosed with which form of cancer in 1977?

Osteosarcoma, a bone cancer, cost him his right leg in March 1977. Three weeks after the amputation he was walking on an artificial leg, and soon he was playing golf with his father.

Which treatment did Terry Fox undergo for 16 months after losing his leg to cancer?

Chemotherapy kept him visiting a Vancouver cancer clinic for 16 months. Learning that research had lifted his survival odds from 15 per cent to about 50 in two years convinced him to raise money for it.

Terry Fox studied kinesiology at which university?

Simon Fraser University was his mother's idea: unsure about university at all, he enrolled meaning to become a physical education teacher, and made the basketball team in his first year.

Which future Paralympic star recruited Fox to his wheelchair basketball team in 1977?

Less than two months after learning the sport, Fox made the team for the national championship in Edmonton.

In which mountain range is Mount Terry Fox?

Rocky Mountains: British Columbia named the peak near Mount Robson for him in July 1981, within weeks of his death.

In which city did Terry Fox begin his run on April 12, 1980?

St. John's is where he filled two bottles with Atlantic water that morning: one to keep as a souvenir, the other to pour into the Pacific when he got home.

A statue of Terry Fox stands at Mile 0 of the Trans-Canada Highway in which British Columbia city?

Victoria unveiled the statue in 2005 at the highway's Pacific end: the ocean Fox set out for carrying a bottle of Atlantic water, and never reached.

Which organization offered to replace Terry Fox's artificial leg as often as his run required?

The War Amps made the offer after he wrote asking for support. The leg took a pounding: he averaged about 42 km, the length of a full marathon, every day.

Terry Fox's final fundraising target of about $24 million was matched to which figure?

Canada's population was about 24 million, and he wanted a dollar from each person. The fund passed that mark the following February, months before he died.

Which friend did the driving and the cooking throughout Terry Fox's 1980 run?

Doug Alward and Fox quarrelled so often that by Nova Scotia they were barely speaking. The childhood friends patched it up, and Alward stayed for every mile.

Which member of Terry Fox's family joined the 1980 run to ease tensions with his driver?

Darrell, the younger brother, was 17 when he joined at Saint John, New Brunswick. The family counted on his cheery nature, and he could usually lighten the mood.

Which company supplied the running shoes for Terry Fox's 1980 run?

Adidas supplied the shoes. He turned away every company that asked him to endorse its products, insisting that nobody was to profit from the run.

What did the Ford Motor Company donate to Terry Fox's 1980 run?

A camper van from Ford went with him the whole way. On the final day he ran on past the cheering crowds, then climbed in and asked to be driven to a hospital.

Which business leader, who had lost a son to cancer, pledged $2 a mile to Terry Fox's run?

Isadore Sharp, the Four Seasons founder, challenged 999 other companies to match his pledge. He later proposed a yearly run in Fox's name and organized the first one.

Terry Fox lingered in Montreal so that he would reach Ottawa in time for which holiday?

Canada Day was the Cancer Society's idea: a holiday arrival in the capital would draw crowds and donations. He had just crossed Quebec, where the run raised almost nothing.

Which prime minister met Terry Fox when his 1980 run reached Ottawa?

Pierre Trudeau met him in the capital. A year later, after Fox died, he told the House of Commons that one person's courage had united the whole country.

Terry Fox kicked off a 1980 game in which Ottawa's CFL team hosted which club with nearly the same nickname?

Saskatchewan Roughriders met the Ottawa Rough Riders that day, a pairing made possible when Regina's team took up the name in 1924. The crowd gave Fox a standing ovation.

A crowd of about 10,000 greeted Terry Fox at which Toronto landmark in July 1980?

Nathan Phillips Square, in front of City Hall, capped a day on which the Cancer Society reckoned it took in $100,000. From Toronto on, the run was news across the whole country.

Which NHL star joined Terry Fox on the road into Toronto and gave him his 1980 All-Star sweater?

Darryl Sittler was Fox's hockey idol. The Maple Leafs star ran beside him into downtown Toronto, then handed over the sweater in front of a crowd of thousands.

Terry Fox called meeting which hockey great, who handed him a $25,000 cheque, the highlight of his run?

Bobby Orr met him in Ontario that July. By then Fox had sat down with the prime minister and been cheered by thousands in Toronto, and he still ranked this meeting first.

Which British actress, then starring at Ontario's Stratford Festival, greeted Terry Fox with a hug and a kiss in 1980?

Maggie Smith was in her fourth season at Stratford when the run came through town that July. She found him in a packed downtown crowd and added a donation of her own.

Outside which Ontario city was Terry Fox forced to end his run in 1980?

Thunder Bay was 18 miles away when he had to stop. He left promising to come back and run the rest, and a bronze statue of him now stands near the spot.

Which newspaper followed Terry Fox's 1980 run with weekly reports?

Toronto Star reporter Leslie Scrivener filed every week while most of the press was still slow to notice the run. She went on to write his biography.

Terry Fox first blamed his sore knee on which 1976 mishap?

A car crash wrecked his car that November and seemed to leave him with nothing worse than a sore right knee. He played out the basketball season before seeking treatment, and cancer was found in March 1977.

To which organ had Terry Fox's cancer spread when he stopped running in 1980?

Lungs: he gave the news himself at a press conference the next day and promised to be back. Others offered to finish the run for him, and he turned them all down.

Which television network staged a nationwide telethon for Terry Fox a week after his run ended?

CTV put the show together within a week, and in five hours it raised several times what Fox had collected in nearly five months on the road.

In 1980 the governor general travelled to British Columbia to give Terry Fox which honour?

Companion of the Order of Canada is the country's highest civilian rank, and at 22 he was the youngest person ever given it. The ceremony was held specially in his hometown because he was too ill to wait.

Terry Fox won the 1980 Lou Marsh Award, now the Northern Star Award, given each year to whom?

The country's top athlete, as chosen by a panel of sports journalists: Fox won it for a run he never finished. The Canadian Press named him Newsmaker of the Year in a separate vote that same December.

Which religious leader sent Terry Fox his support?

Pope John Paul II was among the well-wishers whose letters and telegrams reached him during his illness. Fox died a month short of his 23rd birthday.

What honour, usually reserved for statesmen, did Ottawa order when Terry Fox died?

Flags across the country flown at half-mast was a tribute normally kept for politicians and heads of government, here paid to a 22-year-old runner. His funeral was televised from coast to coast.

In CBC's 2004 viewer vote The Greatest Canadian, Terry Fox finished second to whom?

Tommy Douglas, the premier who brought in medicare, won the six-week vote. Fox, dead at 22, finished ahead of three prime ministers, Wayne Gretzky and the inventor of the telephone.

The 1983 drama The Terry Fox Story was the first movie ever made for which cable network?

HBO made its first original film from this Canadian story. Fox's family disliked it for playing up his temper.

Who played Terry Fox in the 2005 television film Terry?

Shawn Ashmore, Iceman in the X-Men films, has two legs, so his right one was erased digitally. He trained for months with Grant Darby, an amputee who lost a leg to the same cancer and doubled for him on screen.

Which NBA star co-directed Into the Wind, ESPN's 2010 documentary about Terry Fox?

Steve Nash was six during the run and remembers rushing to the TV each morning to see where Terry was. He shared the director's credit with his cousin, the filmmaker Ezra Holland.

Which Rod Stewart song was written for and dedicated to Terry Fox?

"Never Give Up on a Dream" appeared on Stewart's 1981 album Tonight I'm Yours, months after Fox died. He then named his 1981-82 run of Canadian concerts the Terry Fox Tour.

Which Canada Post rule was waived for the 1982 Terry Fox stamp?

The ten-year wait after a person's death was dropped so fast that Fox was told a stamp was coming while he was still alive. It went on sale in April 1982, less than ten months after he died.

In December 2024, Terry Fox was chosen to appear on which Canadian banknote?

$5 is the note, and Sir Wilfrid Laurier moves to the $50 to make room. The government said it hoped the choice would inspire more Canadians to give $5 to the cause Fox championed.

Since 2015, Manitoba has marked Terry Fox Day on which date?

The first Monday in August was Manitoba's Civic Holiday until a 2015 law renamed it. The same law created a Terry Fox Run Day.

Terry Fox's mother, Betty, helped carry the Olympic flag into the opening ceremony of which Games?

Vancouver 2010 made Betty Fox one of eight flag bearers. Its Terry Fox Award was shared by skier Petra Majdic and skater Joannie Rochette, who won bronze days after her mother's sudden death.

Douglas Coupland's four bronze sculptures of Terry Fox running stand outside which Vancouver venue?

BC Place has had the memorial since 2011. Each of the four figures is larger than the one behind it, echoing how support for Fox grew as he ran west.

Which fellow amputee finished a coast-to-coast run across Canada in 1985, inspired by Terry Fox?

Steve Fonyo lost a leg to cancer at 12 and set out at 18. He ran on past the spot where Fox had been forced to stop and reached the Pacific.

Terry Fox was inspired by an article about Dick Traum, the first amputee to finish which race?

New York City Marathon was Traum's race, in 1976. Fox's old high-school coach brought him the Runner's World story the night before his leg was amputated, and the idea of a run of his own took hold.

In 1979 Terry Fox finished last in a 17-mile road race in which British Columbia city?

Prince George offered a shorter course too, and he had planned to run that one. He ran the full distance instead and came in ten minutes behind the last two-legged runner, to tears and applause.

Which everyday Canadian coin was struck with Terry Fox's image in 2005, the 25th anniversary of his run?

The loonie is named for the loon on its back, and that year Fox, running, took the bird's place. He was the first Canadian on a circulating coin.

Which rule did Terry Fox set for his namesake run?

It must be non-competitive and open to anyone: no winners and no awards, only money raised for research. He also ruled out corporate sponsorship.