30th Annual Terry Fox Run this weekend

Terry Fox, 2007

I read on the CBC that the Terry Fox Run turns 30 this year. And has raised over half a billion dollars for cancer research. Little did Terry Fox think back in the day, his one man goal to run across Canada would turn into this.

The image is one I shot after dark in May of 2007 of the statue of Terry Fox near Thunder Bay, Ontario. It is a 9 foot tall bronze resting on a 45 ton granite base that is not visible in my shot - tripod mounted Canon XTi, ISO400, 15 second exp., only lit from the monument floodlights. Terry Fox succumbed to his cancer and had to give up his cross country run near the spot above the Trans Canada Highway on which the monument and interpretive centre was placed. That section of the highway is appropriately named the Terry Fox Courage Highway.

You only have to drive through that part of the country to realize how staggering a thing it must have been for him to do what he did. You hear the stories around this time of year when the various Terry Fox runs happen, but I tell you, until you actually see where he did what he did, it doesn't hit home. With the exception of a small segment on the St. Johns side of New-foundland, I have seen the whole route he ran. I couldn't help but be impressed and humbled. In warm and bitterly cold weather. Jogging in his signature hop-skip style with an artificial leg. With cancer slowly coming out of remission. He just soldiered on. Running 40 a day till he could no longer.

For those of you outside Canada who have not really heard too much about him, check his Wikipedia page.

He wouldn't have thought so, but the guy was a hero for sure.

Mike