In 1980, a 21-year-old with one leg decided to run across Canada. His name was Terry Fox.
Terry was a regular kid from British Columbia who loved sports, especially basketball. At 18, he was diagnosed with bone cancer and had to have his right leg amputated above the knee. It was a brutal blow. He had just started his freshman year of college and was still figuring out who he was and where he was headed.
But what came next is why you’re reading about him now.
After months of painful rehab, Terry taught himself to walk with a prosthetic. Then he taught himself to run. Then, in the middle of treatment, he came up with the idea to run across Canada to raise money for cancer research. He had seen how underfunded cancer research was. He had seen kids around him suffering. And he wanted to do something that would actually matter.
So he trained. Hard. Running up to 20 miles a day on a leg that was never designed to handle that kind of punishment. His gait was rough and uneven. The prosthetic wasn’t high-tech. It was built to walk on, not run. Each step was a jarring impact.
But on April 12, 1980, in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Terry dipped his foot into the Atlantic Ocean, scooped up a bottle of water, and started running west. His plan was to pour it into the Pacific when he reached the other side.
He called it the Marathon of Hope. He ran the equivalent of a marathon every day. He passed through small towns. He waved at families on the side of the highway. He kept going through wind, rain, and exhaustion. Some days he could barely get through a few steps before the pain kicked in. But he never stopped.
By the time he reached Ontario, he had become a national figure. Crowds lined the roads to watch him pass. Donations started flooding in. People saw themselves in Terry. Not a superhero. Not a celebrity. Just a regular guy doing something impossible.
He ran for 143 days straight. He covered 3,339 miles. He made it all the way to Thunder Bay. That is more than halfway across Canada. If you measure the total planned route, he had less than 2,000 miles to go. He had already passed through six provinces. If the cancer had not returned, he likely would have finished.
But it did return. This time it was in his lungs. On September 1, 1980, Terry had to stop running. He was hospitalized shortly after. He died the next summer on June 28, 1981. He was 22 years old.
Terry had hoped to raise one dollar for every Canadian. At the time, that was $24 million. He didn’t quite get there while he was alive. But the country picked up where he left off. The donations didn’t slow down. Today, the Terry Fox Foundation has raised over $850 million for cancer research. His annual run is held in over 600 communities across Canada and around the world.
Terry never made it to the Pacific. But his run did not fall short. It went further than most people ever dream of going. He showed what a single person can do when they believe in something more than themselves.
Terry Fox is not just a Canadian hero. He is a global one.
This week’s dude is Terry. A kid with one leg, a determined heart, and a belief that hope was not just powerful. It was enough.
Terry Fox, 1958–1981
P.S. Thanks for the recommendation, Keith.