Terry Fox: Greatest Canadian Hero

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Fan mail and upcoming cruise voyage

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2:17And all across Canada, I feel like during Q&A, people would ask us why we haven't, or would we, and maybe why we haven't. That's like the rudest a Canadian could ever get. Right. It's like very sheepishly to say, why haven't you guys covered Terry Fox yet? Yes. And specifically, there are two people worth calling out. The first is William I. He was the birthday boy at our Montreal show. That's right. And we called him William I because there were a few other Williams who asked questions after him. Yeah. But I saw he and his mom, he asked us to do Terry Fox.

2:50And then the next day, I ran into him and his mom at the train station. Oh, yeah. And they elaborated further on how great Terry Fox would be for an idea, for an episode. And then the other guy, Chris, who met us at the airport in Winnipeg, he also suggested it too. So, Canada, you can thank William I and Chris. That's right. Before we get started, we do want to mention, though, that we are going on a cruise, a stuff cruise, right? Yes, stuff at sea.

3:22And, Chuck, it's not even a cruise, buddy. It's so highfalutin, it's a voyage. That's right. It is a voyage. And we are departing from New York City, from Brooklyn, actually, on October 2nd, sailing to Bermuda and then back to New York. We have since learned that our live show will be on day two of the voyage at 4 p.m. And we're still getting confirmation on exactly how you sign up for that specific thing.

3:52But just, you know, a lot of people have signed up. The boat is filling up. And if you want to come out and go on a sea voyage with us and our other stuff colleagues, there's lots of fun stuff planned. Stuff, stuff, stuff. Yeah, we're just going to be hanging out on the boat with everybody, too. So it will be a good time. And that show, like you said, it's early in the afternoon. So our hope is that you can all be in bed by 630. That's right. We don't want to mess up anyone's dinner plans, you know? Yep. So, yeah, you just search Stuff at Sea on Virgin Voyages and you will find everything you need.

4:28And, yeah, so we'll see you guys in October. Coming up, Chuck, that's like a month or so. I know. It's really snuck up on me. Same here. It pounced, too. That's right. And now, back to Terry Fox. Yeah, so I think a lot of, I should say a lot of the world can be forgiven for not having heard of Terry Fox. I actually feel kind of like a schmo for having never, ever heard of him or what he did. Oh, really? Yeah. Had you when we were touring Canada? Yeah. And, you know, I, not because I'm just, you know, some savant that knew about all of Canadian history as a child.

5:05Sure. But I was a youngster who had HBO and I watched the Terry Fox movie, the 1983 movie with Robert Duvall, like, more than three or four times. Robert Duvall seems old to play Terry Fox. Right. He didn't play Terry Fox. But, yeah, I saw that, I saw that movie, you know, it was on HBO and I saw every HBO movie at least three or four times when I was that age. Mm-hmm. So, I, that's how I know about the Terry Fox story. It was from that film.

5:35Okay. Yeah, and that was definitely, like, when he was part of, like, the immediate zeitgeist. Like, he was world famous. And what stands out to me, too, is he was world famous for what he did over the course of about a year. Like, he became, like, a public figure and then basically what he did to put himself on the map as a public figure and do this amazing thing. I'm just teasing here. I'm not even going to say what he did yet.

6:05It was basically over the course of a year, Chuck. That's right. Maybe we should say what he did. I agree. Okay. Terry Fox was a very brave, inspiring person, like you said, not only in Canada but throughout the world. Because he had cancer, he lost a leg to cancer, and planned the Marathon of Hope where he was to run clear across Canada with a prosthetic leg. And that's probably all we should reveal for now. Yeah.

Childhood and early athletic drive

6:36Yeah.

Childhood and early athletic drive

6:37Let's go back to the beginning. We're going to go back to Winnipeg where we were. That was our last show in Canada. That was great. And on July 28, 1958, if you had gone to one of the fine hospitals in Winnipeg and asked around, you might have found Raleigh and Betty Fox were having a baby named Terry. Terry, I think he was Terrence Stanley Fox is what he was born. And very quickly, Terry said, this is, it's way too cold in Winnipeg. Let's move out to the Pacific Coast where it's mild.

7:07And Betty and Raleigh said, let's do that. So the family of six went out to, I guess, a suburb of Vancouver, Port Coquitlam. Are you sure it wasn't a home birth, by the way? My goodness, that didn't even occur to me. I mean, that would make it way harder to find Betty and Raleigh if you had to go house to house. I could just see that being like the first correction. Like, guys, they weren't in a hospital. Absolutely. No, like, basically, if I have any chance of getting it wrong, I'm going to get it wrong.

7:39So when Terry was a kid, he was really into sports and really was his entire life. But he wasn't, you know, he wasn't blessed with the, like, the size of an athlete. He wasn't a natural athlete. But he was very determined, as we'll see, even as a kid. So, you know, there are plenty of stories from his childhood where, you know, he would go out for baseball practice like an hour early, waiting at the corner for his ride. Or when he took up basketball, you know, he was not a big guy. He was one of the shortest and smallest kids in his class in the eighth grade.

8:13So he would show up early for practice. He would be the last one to leave practice. And as the story goes, on the eighth grade team, he played one minute of actual basketball on the court, like, during the season. And by 10th grade, he was the starting guard. And by 12th grade, his senior year, he was voted co-athlete of the year at his high school with his best friend, Doug Allward. Isn't that cool? That's amazing. I mean, so that's just one of numerous stories about how cool this kid was and how hard he tried at everything.

8:46And not just basketball. He also played soccer. He played rugby. He ran cross country. And he got into cross country when his basketball coach, when he was playing very little at the time and still trying to practice and get good, his basketball coach was like, maybe give up basketball and go take up cross country. And so Terry was like, I'll just do both. Yeah. And he said, does that mean I run across Canada? And they said, no, that's just what you call the sport when you're running through the woods and not on a track. And he goes, yeah, run across Canada.

9:19Exactly. It hatched an idea.

College, car accident, and cancer diagnosis

9:22After high school and his athletic career there, he went to Simon Fraser University. He played on the JV basketball team in college. Yeah. And was in a car wreck that fall. Didn't get, like, super hurt. He was a little banged up, but he started getting some knee pain. And for about six months or so, he just kind of chalked that up to fall out from that car wreck. Sure. And then that next spring, he was like, I should probably go to a doctor. This is March of 77. And when he was at the doctor, he, you know, he heard those terrible words that you hear in an appointment like that, which is, hey, you have cancer.

10:01Yeah, specifically an osteogenic sarcoma, which is bone cancer that starts in the knee. And this was a time where cancer research and cancer treatment was the best thing you could do for something like that was to amputate. You have to get not just the tumor out, but all the cancer that's around it. And so they're like, we just need to take off, I think, the six inches above his knee. Yeah. And he was 18 at the time, an athletic kid.

10:33Like, this is, for most people, most 18-year-old boys who are, like, into sports, this would just be life-shattering. And I'm sure it was, but he had an ability to kind of pick himself up and be like, okay, this is my new reality. Let's see how I can excel in this reality, too. Yeah. And I even remember that, and I kind of scrubbed through some of the Robert Duvall movie. They handle all that in about 20 seconds in the film. Really? Yeah. I mean, you know, it was an early 80s.

11:04I guess it was a TV movie, but I saw it on HBO. Maybe it was an HBO movie. I don't know. Hey, I believe that you saw it on HBO. You've been so emphatic about it that even if it was a TV movie, even if the president of HBO at the time came to me and said it wasn't on HBO, I wouldn't believe him. It had to be, because why else would I have seen it multiple times? Those TV movies just ran like a movie of the week, and they were gone forever. Do you remember the one? It was an after-school special. It wasn't a TV movie of the week, but it featured Helen Hunt, and she smokes PCP and runs and jumps out of a second-story window in her high school

11:39because she's flipped out on PCP, and it was Helen Hunt. That was on HBO.

11:46The home box office. Sure. Man, we should get them as a sponsor. What a plug. Did you ever see – there's a video of the HBO, the original HBO, like, I guess, title card or whatever, where, like, it zooms through this street, this neighborhood, and all the lights are starting to come on, and then it gets to the mountains, and it says HBO or whatever. Oh, yeah. That was an actual model. I saw people filming in it and going through with this camera. It was really amazing. There's, like, a short video of it.

12:17It's great. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Oh, man. If we're not getting HBO money by the end of this episode, I'm going to be really upset. I also want to say to our new listeners who are Canadian and haven't listened to us before but saw a Terry Fox episode and started to listen, this is pretty much par for the course for every episode we've ever done. And we're coming up on 1,800 of them. That's right. 1,800 times we've gotten sidetracked, probably times three.

12:48At least. Yeah. All right. So back to Terry Fox. He has gotten this terrible diagnosis. He decides, you know, despite his amputation, he's going to move forward as an athlete. He undergoes 16 months of chemo. And that same summer that he, like, right after he had this amputation, he goes out and is like, I'm going to join a wheelchair basketball team. And not only that, he joins the Vancouver Cable Cars in 1977 in a tournament and leads this team to back-to-back national tournaments in 78 and 79.

13:24Like, right out of the gate, man. He's after it. Right. So, I mean, by that time, he's, what, 19, maybe 20 for the second one. Have you ever seen a wheelchair basketball game? Oh, yeah. They're amazing. Yeah. There was a team called the—I looked up the name because I couldn't remember, but it was the Toledo Silver Streaks. And I'm not sure how my mom got into it, but we used to go to Silver Streaks games, like, a lot. Yeah. Oh, that's cool. Back in the early 80s. It was very cool. I never saw one live. I bet that's a good one. Oh, yeah.

13:55You saw them on TV? Was this on HBO? Just stop.

14:00Shame on you.

14:03Around this time, he meets a young woman named Rika Noda, and she became a very prominent figure in his life, obviously, as his girlfriend. And someone who would, you know, would be by his side through this whole next chapter that we're about to talk about. Yeah. And one other thing about him. So, he—when he took to his wheelchair for wheelchair basketball, he already had an artificial leg, a prosthetic. But he would train in his wheelchair going up, like, mountain passes and stuff. Like, he—it wasn't just, like, level roadways.

14:35It wasn't just, like, going to the gym. Like, he would figure out, like, the hardest thing you could do to train, and then that's what he would go do. Yeah. Pretty smart. Like, I bet when he got on the basketball court, he's like, this is a piece of cake compared to going up a mountain. Exactly. Yeah. Do you want to take a break now? Yeah, let's take a break. Okay. And we'll be right back with more on The Great Terry Fox. We've all done it, tumble down an internet rabbit hole trying to self-diagnose.

15:11And sometimes doing our own research can leave us more anxious than informed. Your feed is packed with wellness trends telling you to cold plunge, protein max, detox, track your sleep. But what's actually real? What's exaggerated? What's just wrong? That's exactly what Health vs. Hype from the American Medical Association and iHeart Media's Ruby Studio is here to find out. Each episode, Emmy-nominated science communicator Trace Dominguez, who's racked up billions of views across PBS, Discovery Channel, and YouTube, talks to doctors, influencers, and real people trying these trends.

15:43Not to cancel them, not to hype them more, but to actually understand them. Because when it comes to your health, who you listen to matters. Start asking better questions and listen to Health vs. Hype on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We can eradicate food deserts with this technology. Hey everybody, it's Chuck from Stuff You Should Know, and that was Jaleah Hemmings. She and her husband created Nourish and Bloom Market, a fully autonomous grocery store. You can scan a QR code to enter, pick up what you need, and just walk out.

16:15Or, as Jaleah puts it... Tap, grab, and go 24-7. We started to get flooded with folks saying, hey, I need you in my city. It became their mission to develop a store that could open within three months, even without any infrastructure. And just when we were like, how are we going to accomplish this goal, we won the AT&T Small Business Contest Grant. That $50,000 got us over the finish line, where we built the first AI-powered grocery shipping container in the country. For Jaleah, it's about building a legacy to show the world that you can solve any problem when you work together.

16:48Having the support of AT&T, the city of Atlanta, is huge. Look at how many people we've been able to help. Connecting changes everything. AT&T.

17:02Hey everyone, if you've ever wanted to feel what it's like inside an episode of a show you love, hang with podcast hosts beyond the mic, or swap screens for sunsets with curious, like-minded people, then Stuff at Sea is your kind of voyage. That's right, Stuff at Sea is a five-night, culture-soaked escape where pink sand paradise meets curious minds. Sailing round trip on October 2nd to 7th, 2026, from New York City to Bermuda, this voyage drops you straight into the iHeart Podcast Stuff universe. On top of the adults-only experience you already love, you'll get live podcast episode recordings,

17:36behind-the-scenes sessions, themed activations, and more unmissable onboard moments. Yeah, and there's overnight stays in Bermuda, so there's no rush. Just long, sun-drenched days to explore or do absolutely nothing at all. And back on board, curiosity sparks connection through conversations, experiences, and a lineup designed to keep things as thought-provoking as they are unforgettable. Stuff at Sea is part of the new specialty sailing collection that transforms beloved podcasts into immersive at-sea experiences exclusively with Virgin Voyages.

18:06Expect more stories, more hosts, and more ways to experience the voices that you love. Book now at virginvoyages.com slash stuff. Okay, Chuck, so dialing it back a minute, the night before Terry's leg was amputated,

Inspiration for the Marathon of Hope

18:36it was his right leg, and again, it was about six inches above his knee was where they amputated. And the night before his high school basketball coach, a guy named Terry Fleming, brought Terry Fox an article about a guy named Dick Trom, who was the first amputee to run the New York City Marathon. From what I could tell, he may have been the first amputee who ran any kind of marathon. And he became, after a car accident took his leg, he became an activist for accessibility.

19:10And so it was a pretty inspiring article, you know, and it just got right through to Terry Fox. Like, it was about the perfect thing that his high school coach could have done for him. Yeah, for sure. Because he hears this story, and, I mean, almost immediately afterward, it's like, I know what I'm going to do. Like, I know what my immediate life purpose is. I'm going to run across Canada, and I'm going to raise money for cancer research. Yeah, and he also was kind of driven to raise money for cancer research because one of his doctors had told him

19:43that if he'd been diagnosed just a few years earlier, he would have gotten way, way worse treatment. Like, it was just advancing. Yeah. And just a couple years ago, his survival, his chance of survival would have been way less. So he was like, okay, actually doing cancer research is definitely worthwhile, too. Right. Like, they're making gains and can make even more with more money and more research. Exactly. You always say it better than me. No, that's not true.

20:15So he keeps this, he didn't make some huge announcement at first. He told Rika, his girlfriend, he told his best friend Doug, and they start kind of training in private. Again, just sort of keeping it quiet at his local junior high. And the first, you know, prosthetics have come a really, really long way since Terry Fox's prosthetic leg. Yeah. I guess we could talk a little bit about that. So the guy who designed his leg, his name was Ben, I guess, Spiker is how I'd pronounce it.

20:49It was, you know, pretty new in like the development of artificial limbs that you could actually like use for running and, you know, to be athletic on. It was a sort of a radical idea at the time, I guess. Yeah. And so they settled on something pretty simple. They didn't want to get like too wacky with it. They just, you know, were like, this needs to be suctioned onto your remaining leg. And there's no shock absorption.

21:20It's going to be straight. Like this is, you know, pre when they had things. Obviously, like these days when you have stuff like Oscar Pistorius and those like blades that he runs on. They're like a pound each. This thing weighed nine pounds and was just straight. So it really modified the way Terry had to use it and had to run. Yeah, because he did. He lacked the muscles like he had hamstrings, but they didn't reach down to his knee or his his calf. Same with his quadriceps.

21:50So he ended up having to do all of the work of running with his right hip muscles. And again, there's also no shock absorption. And Ben Spiker was really trying. They worked on a lot of different models. One of them was like a pogo stick, basically was based on a pogo stick. And like you said, they finally ended up on a simple version. And the simple version actually proved to be pretty smart because when he started his marathon of hope, it needed to be repaired a couple of times along the way.

22:20Yeah. I mean, I think there was this one story where a guy at an auto body shop repaired it with like car parts. 78 Malibu parts. Hey, styling. Yeah, and then there was a welder, I think, in Salt-Saint-Marie who fixed, who repaired it at one point, too. So the fact that it was simple helped him in the long run, even though it was excruciating to run on. Like he very frequently, I think basically the entire time, every day, he had blood like coming down where his prosthetic met his leg.

22:55Yeah, for sure. The artificial foot was made from rubber and wood. I mean, they did the best they could with absorbing impact, but it was not great. So he had to adapt, like I said earlier, his running style into what they called a hop and skip running style, where he hopped on his left leg and then would swing that prosthetic leg forward and then skip back again to his left leg. So if you've ever obviously seen the great HBO movie, I think there was one in the early 2000s as well.

23:27They did another movie. I haven't seen that one or just seen a clip of the real Terry Fox. Right. You know, it can only be best described as like an awkward running style that you just had to grit your way through. Yes, that's exactly right. And if you also, Chuck, are interested, I believe three iterations of his artificial leg, starting with the first and then going to the one he ran on, they are at the Royal British Columbia Museum, I think, on display.

24:00Yeah, there's a bunch of stuff about him on display there now. All right. So they eventually land on a version, again, that these days it seems very archaic. But back then it did the job, still a lot of discomfort, but he could start to run longer and longer and he started training more. And he finally entered his first race in August of 79. This is just six months after he started training. And he was like, I'm just going to get out there. I'm going to run, like, try and get halfway through it just to see what I can do.

24:31But he ended up running 17 miles, finished the race. Yeah. And actually he finished last, but he was just 10 minutes behind the last two legged runner. So he also got his first taste of being cheered on by a bunch of strangers who were moved by his determination, essentially, to become a key theme in the life of Terry Fox. So he was like, okay, I can totally do this. I think when he started training, he covered like 5,000 kilometers, I think, during his training period.

25:02And this was not over a terribly long time. I think you said he entered his first race in August of 1979. He started the Marathon of Hope in— April of 80. April of 80, right. So, okay. So within a year, he'd already covered 5,000 kilometers in a prosthetic leg. So he's like, I can totally do this. And he told his parents. His mom later said, I told them something along the lines of, I think you're crazy for trying this. But I read that his dad was like, when are you going to start?

25:33It was just the way I think people approached Terry. Like, he was known to be very stubborn and determined, obviously. But he was like, you know, the point here is not for me to show off. It's to raise money for cancer research in Canada. And, like, he figured out that doing this was going to attract a lot of attention. And he could use that attention to say, hey, thanks for the support. Donate to cancer research. He needed the help of the actual, like, Canadian Cancer Society.

26:07And at first, when he approached them, they were like, that's a good idea, kid. But we're not really convinced this is going to do anything. Yeah. I mean, you know, he was trying to raise a million bucks. That was his goal. Obviously, the Canadian Cancer Society, like any organization like that, gets a lot of queries and sponsorship requests from people. So, to them, I think this was just another one of those. And they said he was pretty dogged, though. And they said, all right, listen, kid. If you can get some other people on board as sponsors, then we'll talk.

26:40So, he and his mom wrote to a bunch of corporations. And it was pretty amazing. They got a lot of support right out of the gate. The Ford Motor Company donated a camper van because they needed a van to ride along on this whole run. Yes, they also donated the grass, gas, or ass sticker that it came with. That's right. I finally bought one of these. I think I told you that. No, you didn't. Yeah, a couple of years ago. It's my favorite bumper sticker of all time. Yeah. I bought one and I put it on the – I have stickers on the big, huge, heavy trash can at my camp.

27:18Oh, cool. Yeah, I didn't put it on my car. I was going to say, this is a twist I had not expected. Yeah, yeah. It's at the camp. So, they donate the camper van. Adidas donates 24 pairs of their running shoes. Imperial Oil and Safeway donated food and gas money. And then Pacific Western Airlines said, all right, we'll fly everyone out to Newfoundland. Where are you going to start this thing? And, you know, Godspeed. So, he had those sponsors secured, went back to the Canadian Cancer Society, and they were like, all right, kid, you know, you went out and did what we asked you to do.

27:55So, we're going to get behind you in the Marathon of Hope, 4,600 mile. How many kilometers is that? Something like 7,400 kilometers, I think. All right. Starting out in St. John's, Newfoundland, all the way to Vancouver, his home. And they were going to begin, like I said, April 1980. So, you know, we talked about the physical training that happened. There was also the mental game because, obviously, to undertake something like this, it requires, you know, the head, the heart, the physicality to do it all.

28:28And so, he realized early on, like, I can't think of this as a 7,400 kilometer run. I need to think of it as, like, one day at a time and then within that day to break it down. Like, maybe I can run the next mile. And then once I finish that mile, I can get another mile. And apparently on days that were really, really tough on him, he'd say, I just need to run to that next stop sign or to that next corner. And he would count telephone poles and do math problems in his head to distract from just the literal physical pain that he was going through.

29:04Yeah, which is probably the most difficult thing you can do as a runner, a long-distance runner. Math. So much so, I remember probably 10 years ago, there was an article that profiled a woman who had, I believe it's retrograde amnesia, where you, like, just reset, like, every couple minutes or every few seconds, depending on how your amnesia is. Yeah. And she was protested by other runners, like, professional runners, as having an unfair advantage.

29:35Oh, interesting. Because, like, that whole, like, as Iron Maiden put it, the loneliness of a long-distance runner never built up for her. So they were like, that's not fair. But that just goes to show you how awful that the mental part of running is, so much more than the physical part, that they were like, this is not fair. And I guess how awful competitive long-distance runners are. Right. Like, what, are you kidding me? Yeah. They're like, have you never heard of Dick Trom in accessibility? Wow.

30:05That's nuts. I can't believe they did that. It's not fair. She can't remember how awful it's been for the past hour. That's pretty much the message here. Wow. All right. Obviously, I'm kidding about long-distance runners. They're great people. Sure. So he was getting dizzy spells. He would get double vision. He figured, like, it's just exhaustion, obviously. He had to get a certificate of health from a cardiologist from the Canadian Cancer Society to even undertake this.

30:36And when he did this, a doctor diagnosed him with an enlarged heart, which is not the most uncommon thing for, like, an athlete like this. But the doctor was like, hey, listen, if you get out there and you're short of breath and you're dizzy, like, you've got to stop running. And he just kept, Terry kept quiet about the fact that, like, yeah, buddy, that's already happening and I'm pushing through. Right. He said to himself quietly, nuts to that. Exactly. So he's going to start running across the entirety of Canada with an enlarged heart on a prosthetic leg in 1980.

31:13And I feel like that's a great place for a break. And when we come back, we're going to kick off the Marathon of Hope, Chuck. All right. We'll be right back. We've all done it, tumble down an Internet rabbit hole trying to self-diagnose. And sometimes doing our own research can leave us more anxious than informed. Your feed is packed with wellness trends telling you to cold plunge, protein max, detox, track your sleep.

31:45But what's actually real? What's exaggerated? What's just wrong? That's exactly what Health vs. Hype from the American Medical Association and iHeart Media's Ruby Studio is here to find out. Each episode, Emmy-nominated science communicator Trace Dominguez, who's racked up billions of views across PBS, Discovery Channel, and YouTube, talks to doctors, influencers, and real people trying these trends. Not to cancel them, not to hype them more, but to actually understand them. Because when it comes to your health, who you listen to matters. Start asking better questions and listen to Health vs. Hype on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

32:21Hey, everyone. If you've ever wanted to feel what it's like inside an episode of a show you love, hang with podcast hosts beyond the mic or swap screens for sunsets with curious, like-minded people, then Stuff at Sea is your kind of voyage. That's right. Stuff at Sea is a five-night, culture-soaked escape where pink sand paradise meets curious minds. Sailing round trip on October 2nd to 7th, 2026 from New York City to Bermuda, this voyage drops you straight into the iHeart Podcast Stuff universe.

32:56On top of the adults-only experience you already love, you'll get live podcast episode recordings, behind-the-scenes sessions, themed activations, and more unmissable onboard moments. Yeah, and there's overnight stays in Bermuda, so there's no rush. Just long, sun-drenched days to explore or do absolutely nothing at all. And back on board, curiosity sparks connection through conversations, experiences, and a lineup designed to keep things as thought-provoking as they are unforgettable. Stuff at Sea is part of the new specialty sailing collection that transforms beloved podcasts into immersive at-sea experiences exclusively with Virgin Voyages.

33:31Expect more stories, more hosts, and more ways to experience the voices that you love. Book now at virginvoyages.com slash stuff.

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Beginning the cross-Canada run

34:56All right, here we are. It's April 12th, 1980. I have just turned nine years old. Don't know about Terry Fox yet because the movie hasn't been made. I'm coming up on four. See, that's why you didn't know. You didn't know about Robert Duvall on HBO when you were four? Oh, I knew all about Robert Duvall.

35:17Big Apocalypse Now fan of four. For sure. So, Terry Fox begins his Marathon of Hope. He started off by dipping his prosthetic leg into the Atlantic Ocean on the coast of Newfoundland. And his goal was, all right, this will be easy. I'll just go out and run about a marathon a day until I reach Vancouver. And maybe I can raise a million dollars by doing this. So, lofty goals, you know, to raise a million bucks.

35:48It sounds kind of quaint now, but that, you know, it's a lot of money back then. I mean, it's a lot of money now, obviously. But if you're trying to, like, raise money for cancer research today, somebody would obviously shoot way higher. But that was a ton of money back then to raise. And he, it was quiet at the beginning because, you know, no one knew about Terry Fox at the time. So, he starts out running. And there's, like, you know, a couple of photographers there from the local paper and, like, six or eight people maybe clapping for him. But, and that's how it all started. It did.

36:19And he got frustrated really quickly because he had the full support and encouragement of the Canadian Cancer Society. But that didn't translate into actual action on their part. Like, for this thing to actually work, people had to know in towns ahead of schedule. Yeah. So, that you had volunteers who were coordinating stuff, like, getting the word out to the press. Like, you needed CCS, like, spokespeople talking to local newspapers and TV stations. Like, you had to let people know so that they could show up and see him, be moved by what he was doing, and then donate.

36:56Like, that's just how it had to go or else he was just doing this for almost nothing. And that's how it went for, like, the first month. He would get very frustrated when he'd run through a town, sometimes a rather large town. They'd be like, who are you? We haven't heard anything about this. And I think in the first month, like, a whole month, all he'd raised was $25,000.

37:18And so, because of this, like, he was getting frustrated not just with the Cancer Society, but just frustrated in general. I mean, like, I can't imagine how tired I would be after one marathon rather than a month of daily marathons, essentially. And his friend Doug Allward had joined him to drive the van basically slowly with him. And they were living together in the van. So, things were getting a touch tense very early on.

37:48Yeah, for sure. I definitely remember this from the movie that they were – they argued a lot and they fought – why is that so funny? I just – I don't know. I just imagined Robert Duvall driving the van and turning around and saying, pipe down back there. No, no. He comes along later. Okay. So, yeah, they were at each other's throats a lot. You know, Terry was, like you said, a stubborn guy. Apparently, he had a bit of a temper. He and Doug would get in fights. It was a lot to undertake, like the pressure this guy was under to bite off something this big and put himself out there like that.

38:23Obviously, there was a lot of stress involved. So, Terry's brother, Daryl, joins them in New Brunswick to just sort of add like a third piece to that – to help diffuse the tension, I guess, a little bit. But you mentioned that, you know, he wasn't getting a lot of attention at first. Apparently, in Quebec – and this was, by the way, not our experience there – we loved Montreal and we found the people there to be wonderful. But apparently, he didn't get any publicity coming into town, didn't raise any money at all in Quebec when he was running through and, like, angered a lot of drivers on the road.

38:59Apparently, they tried to run him off the road. People were honking at him. He tried running on the highway because it had, like, a shoulder to run on. But the police there, like, kicked him off the highway. So, he didn't get a warm reception in Quebec at first. Right. And also didn't raise very much money throughout the whole province. And I have to say, again, I agree with you. The people of Montreal were amazing. I had two Quebecois taxi drivers, one in Vancouver, one in Toronto.

39:29And both of them drove, like, total maniacs. I have to at least say that. They were great guys. Okay. I was talking to them, having fun. But they were maniacs. One of them actually turned around at one point where he's shooting down a right-turn-only lane to cut in in front of a bunch of traffic going quite fast. And he turns around and he's like, how do you like my driving?

39:52Wow. All right. So, maybe this tracks with his experience with the drivers there, Terry Foxes. Yes. Okay.

National media attention in Toronto

39:58All right.

National media attention in Toronto

39:59So, had it not been for the Toronto Star newspaper and a reporter named Leslie Scrivener, Terry Foxes may not have garnered such widespread acclaim. Yeah. Because she was drawn to Terry's story and hats off to the Toronto Star because they really, really got behind him such that they assigned her to write a weekly column called Running with Terry where she went on the road with him, basically, like, reporting on everything that's going on. And by the time they get to Toronto, all of a sudden he's running from, you know, Quebec, his spirits are down, no one really even knows what he's doing.

40:38And he comes into Toronto, like, almost like a national hero overnight. Yeah, pretty much. I read an article, I think from the Toronto Star, where they quoted, they said a grandmother age attendee, her name was Edith Cathy, she gave a quote to the paper where she said that she thought she was in love for the first time. And, like, it's been a long time since anyone has given me feelings, real feelings. He just seemed to fill your life with something that was missing.

41:08And, like, that's kind of how he was starting to inspire people. Like, he was making people, like, feel. And it very quickly became the whole country and then eventually spilled out of the borders of Canada into the world while he was doing this. He finally did what he had set out to do. Like, he had finally gotten to the hearts of Canada and Canadians, and now it was time for them to be like, we want to support you. Here's some money for cancer research.

41:39Yeah, for sure. And, you know, he was a young, handsome guy. And so that certainly didn't hurt to capture the hearts of Canadians. And he had a cool name. Yeah, Terry Fox, great name. Yeah. When he got to Toronto, they asked him to do the kickoff of a football game there. Apparently, when he came on to the field, as the story goes, the stadium announcer says, ladies and gentlemen, and, like, the rest of it is drowned out because people are just going crazy. He met Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. He met Bobby Orr, the great hockey player, and Daryl Sittler, another great hockey player, apparently his idols.

42:14They gave him an NHL All-Star jersey. So money starts coming in, celebrity starts happening, and he realized that, like, you know, this is exactly what he wanted to help raise awareness and money. But it took a toll on him in that now, every town he goes to, everyone wants to do an interview with him, and everyone wants him to come do an inspirational speaking engagement. So, you know, he's running the equivalent of, like, close to a marathon a day. Right. So he's physically wrecked. He has tendinitis in his ankle.

42:45He has a dry cough that wouldn't go away. And he is all of a sudden, like, has to deal, like, constantly with being interviewed as a national hero, which was awesome, but, like, really depleting. Not only that, like, there were plenty of towns that wanted to, like, help him with fundraising events. But we need you to come give a speech so the Chamber of Commerce can have their picture taken with you for the local paper. Like, that kind of stuff. Not just, we're going to support you. We want something from you in return.

43:16And so to get that money, he would have to go do that stuff. And that's a – you basically can't. You can't run a marathon every day and then spend the evening at, like, fundraising events. One fundraising event with zero exercise in a day would wipe me out. Like, imagine doing a handful of them after you ran a marathon that day. You also ran a marathon the day before and the day before that, et cetera. Yeah, for sure. All of the press wasn't kind, too, which really, really stinks.

43:48There were some columnists who was like, you know, you're putting your life at risk, like, kind of degrading him for that, which is something I don't understand. He, you know, there were, like, little offhand kind of, like, quotes they would get from his friend Doug and from his brother about, like, Terry snapping at them or something. So sometimes they would paint him as, like, a tyrant or having, like, a really bad temper, which apparently he had a bit of a temper. But, like, that's not the lead of the story here, newspapers. So that's really disappointing.

44:20Yeah, and it's also one of those things, like, put yourself in his position. Like, would your patience be thin? Yeah, good Lord. You know? So he was actually, like, I think after that newspaper article accused him of cheating, he called the newspaper and was like, you better print a retraction. And they did. But I feel like that kind of, like, changed his perspective on things after that. And it really kind of brought him down. And he was, I don't, it might be overstating it to say, like, he was on the verge of giving up.

44:53But he really, his spirits had been, had taken a beating from that experience. And then along comes this little kid, inspiration in a 10-year-old package, a boy named Greg Scott, who has bone cancer himself. And as a matter of fact, his leg was amputated as well. And he idolizes Terry Fox. He had been following him basically ever since the Toronto Star started reporting on him. And he was hoping he could accompany Terry on some of the run.

45:23Right, on his bicycle, which is just amazing. So, all of a sudden, you've got this one kid with a prosthetic leg, a 10-year-old riding his bike. You got Terry Fox, you know, literally running a marathon a day. So, like, the press coverage on this is just being amped up even more.

Hospitalization and end of the run

45:41And it really, obviously, inspired Terry, like you were saying, to keep going. At about 3,300 miles into his run, Terry started, you know, he had a persistent cough. But he started feeling worse. And he was like, I might have the flu or something. But he was like, I've got to push through. He never took a day off in his entire run, we should mention. So, he runs 20 miles that day anyway. The next day, he runs 23 and gets to Thunder Bay, Ontario. And it's like, the pain in his chest is getting worse and worse. And it spreads to his neck.

46:12And he's like, maybe I'm having a heart attack. And I'm going to die out here. So, like, I've got to go to the hospital. He goes to the hospital. And they said, you have a partially collapsed lung. We've got to do some x-rays and investigate what's going on. And Terry has a feeling like, I think my cancer has spread. And very sadly, he was right. He was. After a couple of days in the hospital, they came back to him. And they said, your cancer is metastasized. Your bone cancer is now growing in your lungs.

46:42And it turned out that he had a golf ball-sized tumor in one lung and a fist-sized tumor in the other lung. Don't forget his large heart that he started out with. And, again, running on a prosthetic leg from circa 1980. And this was, I mean, again, like, just to have that life-shattering news twice. And not only that, he's like, I can't. This is it. I can't run anymore. Now I have to stop and treat this cancer.

47:14So, he called off the run very sadly. He said that I'm going to have to go do this at least for now. But I'm going to try to continue after I beat this cancer. And, you know, you guys hang in there with me. And just the devastation from having to stop. And he had gone well over the halfway point, which I found perplexing because Ontario is not even the middle province. I think Manitoba is. So, I was like, he made it to Thunder Bay, Ontario, but he made it all this way.

47:45He had hugged, essentially, the Canadian-American border. And that had a lot of ups and downs and ups and downs. After Thunder Bay, it was basically a straight line out to Vancouver. So, when he stopped, and that had to make it all the more frustrating. When he stopped, he was like, I have done the hardest part. The rest of it is like cake. But he knew that he had to quit. He did. Yeah, very sadly. It was 143 days into the run. He averaged 23.3 miles a day, which is just incredible.

48:19Raised $2 million, which is double his goal. But he would end up sort of inadvertently raising a lot more money because in September of 1980, there was a telethon on TV, obviously.

Telethon fundraising and legacy

48:34And 48 hours, there were, you know, Elton John, John Denver, the great Gordon Lightfoot, of course, and Anne Murray, great Canadians. Glenn Campbell, all these musicians got together and performed at a telethon. It was a five-hour live event, raised $10 million to add to his $2 million that he raised. And so, I mean, that was $12 million just in 1980 alone. Yeah, and then I think five months after that marathon of hope or telethon of hope, he achieved a follow-up goal that he had, which was raising a dollar for every Canadian citizen, which came to $24.17 million.

49:17Canadian dollars, Canadian dollars in 1980 money, which, from the calculations I made, is equal to just over $93 million Canadian dollars today. Wow. Yeah. And just what, he started in April, and this was September that he managed to do that. Bye. That's tough. So, after months of treatment, he got pneumonia in June of 1981, went into a coma, and passed away, very sadly, on June 28th at the age of 22 years old.

49:52So, as you can imagine, like, the Canadian people and everyone following this took this quite hard, and he was immediately memorialized. Even while he was alive, he was memorialized. He was the youngest person to receive the Companion of the Order of Canada, Canada's highest civilian honor, the Order of the Dogwood, which is British Columbia's version of the Camp Companion of the Order of Canada. He was inducted into the Sports Hall of Fame in Canada, all this while he was alive and as the youngest person.

50:24And then after he died, it just mushroomed from there, essentially. Yeah, for sure. He's been on a couple of postage stamps in Canada.

50:35This is, I remember this happening, actually, at the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver. His mom, Betty, served as one of the eight flag bearers for the Olympic flag opening ceremonies. Very incredible moment. Yeah. And, you know, he's, like I said, everywhere we went in Canada, in Q&A, someone, like, asked us to do a story on Terry Fox. So, he's still very much taught about in schools there. His legacy today is probably the Terry Fox run. Yeah.

51:05Organized by the Terry Fox Foundation. They separated from the Canadian Cancer Society in 1988, but every year, on the second Sunday after Labor Day, which is coming up, kids, adults, people all across Canada go for a run to raise money for cancer research and to honor Terry. Yeah, just coincidentally, we had no idea, but this episode is going to come out a couple of weeks before the Terry Fox run. And so, you can go try it yourself. It's September 20th this year.

51:36And, yeah, just go look up the Terry Fox run, and you can find a place near you that you can join a team and do some fundraising and all that good stuff. And it doesn't matter how far you run or how long or if you've ran before. It doesn't matter. It's all just about raising money for cancer research and, of course, honoring Terry Fox for what he did. Again, over the course of about a year, this kid became one of the greatest Canadians of all time, one of the greatest people of all time. Yeah, for sure. And you don't have to be just in Canada to take part in that.

52:08The Terry Fox run happens all over North America and South America. It happens in countries in Europe, Syria, Thailand, New Zealand. It's all over the place. And as of this year, that foundation has reached its one billionth dollar raise for cancer research. That's awesome, man. Incredible. So that's Terry Fox. Hats off, Terry Fox. There's all sorts of footage of him doing his thing on YouTube and all sorts of stories. And there's at least a couple TV movies, one of which ran frequently on HBO back in the early days.

52:41That's what I hear. Yeah. Yeah. So go check out more on Terry Fox and be inspired.

Listener mail and accent jokes

52:47And in the meantime, I think it's time for Listener Man. We got an email from a guy named Adam about, remember when I was saying the space ghettos for Spice Girls? Yeah. And people are writing in now with more of these fun things, which is if you say this in like this accent, it sounds like this in another accent. Let's hear it. Hey, guys, your tangent of saying words that sound like other words really made me smile because my friends and I used to say these all the time. I was delighted I hadn't heard your example in the episode before, but here are the ones that we said most often.

53:21If you say beer can with a British accent, it sounds like bacon in Jamaican. So beer can, I guess. Nice. You got to say it, though, with a great British accent, but I see what he's saying. And then Adam says, saying rise up lights in a British accent sounds like razor blades in Australian. So hand me some of those, hand me some of those razor blades.

53:52Yeah, that sounded exactly like that. Didn't you think so? Razor blades? I'm really intrigued by this. I feel like we've just cracked into a whole world that I didn't know existed. Yeah, it's a thing. I can't believe you had never heard of any of these. No, I've led a very sheltered line. Yeah. All right. Well, the doors are open to you now, my friend. I know. The doors of perception have been thrown wide open. And that is from Adam. He says, enjoy listening to you guys on my commute, especially the tangents and long running jokes. Cheers from Adam.

54:23Thanks, Adam. That was great. I would love to hear some more of those, too. So keep them coming, everybody. Yeah, same. And if you want to share something about Terry Fox or some other inspirational person, or you just want to say hi, or you want to say pipe down back there, it doesn't matter. You can send it in an email to stuffpodcasts at iheartradio.com.

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