Terry Fox Trivia
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48 free Terry Fox trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
Terry Fox ran the equivalent of a marathon a day on one leg for 143 days, and the run he could not finish became the world's largest one-day fundraiser for cancer research. These Terry Fox trivia questions cover his diagnosis, the Marathon of Hope from St. John's to Thunder Bay, the people who helped along the way, the national mourning, and the honours that followed. Every answer is sourced, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What name was given to Terry Fox's 1980 run across Canada for cancer research?
Marathon of Hope
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.
Q 02In which city was Terry Fox born in 1958?
Winnipeg
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.
Q 03In which British Columbia city did Terry Fox grow up after his family moved west?
Port Coquitlam
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.
Q 04Terry Fox was diagnosed with which form of cancer in 1977?
Osteosarcoma
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.
Q 05Which treatment did Terry Fox undergo for 16 months after losing his leg to cancer?
Chemotherapy
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.
Q 06Terry Fox studied kinesiology at which university?
Simon Fraser 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.
Q 07Which future Paralympic star recruited Fox to his wheelchair basketball team in 1977?
Rick Hansen
Less than two months after learning the sport, Fox made the team for the national championship in Edmonton.
Q 08In which mountain range is Mount Terry Fox?
Rocky Mountains
Rocky Mountains: British Columbia named the peak near Mount Robson for him in July 1981, within weeks of his death.
Q 09In which city did Terry Fox begin his run on April 12, 1980?
St. John's
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.
Q 10A statue of Terry Fox stands at Mile 0 of the Trans-Canada Highway in which British Columbia city?
Victoria
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.
Q 11Which organization offered to replace Terry Fox's artificial leg as often as his run required?
The War Amps
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.
Q 12Terry Fox's final fundraising target of about $24 million was matched to which figure?
Canada's population
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.
Q 13Which friend did the driving and the cooking throughout Terry Fox's 1980 run?
Doug Alward
Q 21A crowd of about 10,000 greeted Terry Fox at which Toronto landmark in July 1980?
Nathan Phillips Square
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.
Q 22Which NHL star joined Terry Fox on the road into Toronto and gave him his 1980 All-Star sweater?
Darryl Sittler
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.
Q 23Terry Fox called meeting which hockey great, who handed him a $25,000 cheque, the highlight of his run?
Bobby Orr
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.
Q 14Which member of Terry Fox's family joined the 1980 run to ease tensions with his driver?
Darrell
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.
Q 15Which company supplied the running shoes for Terry Fox's 1980 run?
Adidas
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.
Q 16What did the Ford Motor Company donate to Terry Fox's 1980 run?
A camper van
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.
Q 17Which business leader, who had lost a son to cancer, pledged $2 a mile to Terry Fox's run?
Isadore Sharp
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.
Q 18Terry Fox lingered in Montreal so that he would reach Ottawa in time for which holiday?
Canada Day
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.
Q 19Which prime minister met Terry Fox when his 1980 run reached Ottawa?
Pierre Trudeau
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.
Q 20Terry Fox kicked off a 1980 game in which Ottawa's CFL team hosted which club with nearly the same nickname?
Saskatchewan Roughriders
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.
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.
Q 24Which British actress, then starring at Ontario's Stratford Festival, greeted Terry Fox with a hug and a kiss in 1980?
Maggie Smith
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.
Q 25Outside which Ontario city was Terry Fox forced to end his run in 1980?
Thunder Bay
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.
Q 26Which newspaper followed Terry Fox's 1980 run with weekly reports?
Toronto Star
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.
Q 27Terry Fox first blamed his sore knee on which 1976 mishap?
A car crash
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.
Q 28To which organ had Terry Fox's cancer spread when he stopped running in 1980?
Lungs
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.
Q 29Which television network staged a nationwide telethon for Terry Fox a week after his run ended?
CTV
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.
Q 30In 1980 the governor general travelled to British Columbia to give Terry Fox which honour?
Companion of the Order of Canada
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.