Port Coquitlam: Where the Rivers Meet

A Canadian Hero He was born Terrance Stanley Fox on July 28, 1958, in Winnipeg and moved with his family to Port Coquitlam in 1966. "He graduated from Port Coquitlam High School:' says Leslie Scrivener in her book Terry Fox: His Story, "with straight As but for one B in English." Then he went on to Simon Fraser University to study kinesiology. He tried out for the junior varsity basketball team, where his coaches noted that while other players maybe had better skills, young Terry Fox "out-gutted" them. He made the team. In late 1976 Terry began to experience unusual pain in his right knee. He underwent a series of tests and on March 5 was diagnosed with a rare cancer of the bone called osteogenic sarcoma. To save his life, his leg would have to be amputated. He was eighteen years old. The operation was scheduled for March 9. On the night before, Terry was visited by a crowd of friends and well-wishers, along with his family. Among the visitors was Terry Fleming, Terry's high-school basketball coach. Fleming brought a copy of Runners World magazine. He had marked a certain story, a profile of a one-legged runner named Dick Traum who had competed in the New York Marathon. The Traum story convinced Terry that he would be able to run again, and it inspired him to take on a challenge that would eventually raise hundreds of millions of dollars for cancer research. His goal became nothing less than to run across the country and raise one dollar in research donations from every Canadian. "I don't know why I dreamed what I did," Terry said once. "It's because I'm competitive. I'm a dreamer. I like challenges. I don't give up. When I decided to do it, I knew I was going to go all out." (He showed that determination when he participated in a wheelchair-basketball team from 1977 to 1980, a slot he got after being recruied by Rick Hansen. Part of Terry's selfdesigned exercise routine was to push his chair along Gaglardi Way, a long, steep climb up Burnaby Mountain toward Simon Fraser University at the top.) After the operation and sixteen months of chemotherapy treatment, Terry began to train and, eventually, to run daily - painfully short distances at first, but increasing steadily as he developed strength and technique. His running style was his own: two hops on his remaining leg, then a long stride on his artificial leg while lifting his torso and shoulders for leverage. After fourteen months of training he had obtained sponsorship and planned his route, and on April 12, 1980, he was in St. John's, Newfoundland. He dipped his artificial leg in the Atlantic, then turned his face to the west to run across the nation. Terry's dream, the "Marathon of Hope," began. At first there was little media attention outside Port Coquitlam itself, but as he survived dangerous road hazards, semi-trailers that almost blew him into ditches, hailstones the size of golf balls, police barring him from parts of the Trans-Canada Highway, and trouble with his artificial leg, the image of this courageous young man and the story of his crusade began to take hold of the public's imagination. Media excitement built, and by the time he reached Ontario, Terry Fox was famous. He marked his twenty-second birthday in Gravenhurst, Ontario . . . a day on which he ran only 20 miles (32 kilometres), instead of the daily 26 he aimed for. The trickle of coins had become an outpouring of dollars-the Ontario division of the Canadian Cancer Society was getting five hundred pledges and donations a day. On Terry's arrival in Toronto, the Canadian media was overwhelmingly behind him. Terry Fox had become the news of the day. As his popularity increased, so did the crowds. Schoolchildren lined the streets, contributing their allowances and pledges. Terry overcame shyness and became an eloquent public speaker, raising even more money. "Knowing that there are people who care about what IDavis, Chuck is the author of 'Port Coquitlam: Where the Rivers Meet', published 2000 under ISBN 9781550172218 and ISBN 1550172212.