As a different way to engage students’ minds for Terry Fox Day this year, Kerri Tolen, Principal of Nestor Falls School, curated a story walk at Caliper Lake Provincial Park, to foster a love for learning, literacy, and being outside, in her students.
“Last year we actually walked on the highway,” said Tolen. “I really like the kids to see a kilometre or a mile, so they understand just how far Terry ran. But this year, it didn’t really make sense safety-wise, even though we had a police escort.”
Because of this, Tolen decided to host this year’s event at Caliper Lake.
“It was a really great venue for doing this story walk,” she said. “I thought their walk would be a little bit shorter, and I kind of wanted to make it just a little bit more informative and a little bit more exciting.”
To build the walk, Tolen used pages from a book about Terry Fox
“It was really interesting because some of the students were super keen on reading the page,” she said.



According to Tolen, each page of the story had a variety of requirements that needed to be met before the students could progress through the story walk.
“They had to jog to the next page, or they had to count the number of [prostheses] in that picture, or they had to listen to the Terry Fox song,” she said. “For example, they had to take Terry with them. So, there was a little cut out of Terry and it fit on a ring. By the time they were done, they had what we call a retell ring so that they could take it home and retell the story of Terry Fox to a parent.”
According to Tolen, the event brought together, “all the great things, like literacy, physical activity, and the outdoors.”
“It’s just a really calming environment,” says Tolen, “You’re just going for a walk, which we know physical activity is good for our wellness, and they just stopped along the way and did some literacy at the same time. I mean, it really was the best of all worlds.”
Tolen has a passion for literacy, and aims to bring that to the forefront for her students.
“It’s about building that vocabulary. Once we have the vocabulary, then it contributes to comprehension, and fluency and all those things,” she said.
“I think the other part is the engagement and just bringing those together. And, hopefully, you know by doing that you’re creating, you know, that memory they will have about enjoying literacy.”
But, it doesn’t end here. Tolen plans to bring more “experiential learning” events throughout the remainder of the school year, including another walk for Take Me Outside Day on October 23.
“I found this most amazing book. It’s called Outside In and it just talks about how we forget sometimes that there is an outside and even sometimes when we’re outside, we’re actually in, like we’re in a car,” she said.
Tolen is also planning a Winter Walk Day in February.