The Terry Fox Run was this past Sunday, September 20, 2026, always held on the second Sunday after Labour Day. Terry Fox lost his right leg to osteogenic sarcoma in 1977 at the age of eighteen. After recovering from surgery, followed by fifteen months of training, Terry dipped his artificial foot in the Atlantic Ocean at St. John’s Newfoundland on April 12, 1980. Thus began his Marathon of Hope. He covered 5,373 km over the 143 days before cancer moved into his lungs, stopping him on September 1, 1980, and taking his life on June 28, 1981.
1981 was the first year a run was organized to honour Terry’s commitment, grit and courage with more than 300,000 runners at the 760 participating sites. This year marks the 46th running. What started out as a Canadian event quickly spread to other countries. This year, sixty countries participated, organized solely by volunteers and, in honouring Terry’s wishes, without corporate sponsorship. The Terry Fox Run is the world’s largest one-day fundraiser for cancer research, having raised more than one billion dollars. 10,000 schools across Canada organize students in a run to honour Terry’s dream and his message of “courage, perseverance, and hope.”
“Run Terry Run” is a new Canadian documentary film created entirely from previously unseen film footage. Director Sean Menard went in search of publicly available film clips for his documentary and with help from the Terry Fox Foundation, he was given access to almost 100 reels of raw film found in a Toronto storage facility a few blocks from Menard’s home. I call that serendipity. Some or most of the reels of film had not been disturbed for more than forty-five years. The footage was from John Simpson’s coverage of Terry’s Marathon of Hope. Simpson completed a CBC documentary, journalistic in nature – “Terry Fox: I Had a Dream”.
“Run Terry Run” is named for the encouraging shouts from supporters all along the road as Terry ran through town after town. Menard digitized the film to preserve it and to make it available for viewing with modern technology. These recovered film reels became the bones of the documentary. In this film there are no “talking head interviews,” but instead Menard used voice-overs from only those individuals who were there with Terry. It is entirely raw, un-edited footage that gives the viewer the sense they spent time riding in the van with Terry. It is a complete visual record of Terry’s inspiring run.
“Run Terry Run” is the story of Terry’s time on the road, the people he met, the days he felt defeated and uncertain, the grit it took for him to continue, and the pain he experienced. Bryan Adams reached out to Sean Menard and said he wanted to write a song for the film. Menard was moved but said he was out of money and didn’t have the time to work with a record label to make it happen. Adams assured Menard the song was a gift, and he had his own record label so there would be no delays and the rest is, as they say, history. “The Ballad of Terry Fox” is the original music gifted by Bryan Adams. The film was released in August of 2026, was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival and is coming to theatres in October of this year. It will be a must-see film for any Canadian needing to feel the spirit of Terry’s conviction and the pride in his accomplishment. We could all use a dose of that these days.
Terry met many children on his run who were battling cancer and it was the “emotional core of his journey.” Meeting them inspired him and strengthened his resolve. He said in one recorded moment at a stop in the run that he had met a young boy, only ten years old, who had lost his leg to the same disease. Terry declared the meeting of this boy as “the most inspirational day of my life” and “he is going to be with me every step of the way and I’ll never forget it.”
What Terry left us with is the reminder every year that great things can be done even when we are wounded, even when we are hurting. His effort over those 143 days still shines bright and inspires us, and lives on all these years later, bringing out the best in us as we lace up our running shoes to honour someone most of us never met and who was taken from us forty-six years ago. Each of us can hold his legacy high to light the path for others to follow.
wendistewart@live.ca
