He is often called one of Canada’s greatest heroes, and now Terry Fox’s legacy will be honoured with an exhibition at the future Canadian Museum of History.
The project is a partnership between the friends of the Terry Fox Collection and the future museum.
It will feature some of the key artifacts from Terry Fox’s 1980 Marathon of Hope. The Fox family donated more than 200,000 items to the private collection.
For example, one of the items is a glass bottle that Terry filled with the water from the Atlantic Ocean as he began his run. Another precious item is the very T-shirt that Terry Fox wore on his run.
The exhibition will open at the future Canadian Museum of History in the spring of 2015 to coincide with the 35th anniversary of the Marathon of Hope. A travelling version of the exhibit will also be developed to tour across the country.
Terry Fox lost his right leg to bone cancer at age of 18.
Inspired to put an end to the deadly disease, he launched on his Marathon of Hope in St. John’s, Newfoundland on April 12, 1980.
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He ran close to 42 kilometers a day on a prosthetic limb, but 143 days into his run, Terry was forced to stop because cancer was found in his lungs.
He passed away at the age of 22 in 1981. But his legacy lives to this day.
“We say he wanted to run across Canada,” said Minister of Canadian Heritage James Moore at today’s announcement. “But if you have seen the prosthetic, and you understand the nature of the run and the weather that he encountered, he was actually more hopping and skipping than he was running.”
“This was an incredibly brave act by a young kid who wanted to raise money to help other kids who were struggling with cancer.”
Terry’s father Rolland “Rolly” Fox said his wife Betty felt the need to keep every card, letter, poem and song dedicated to their son.
In total, there were close to 150,000 items forwarded to Terry during his run.
Fox says they will always be thankful to the city of Port Coquitlam for providing the storage space for the collection.
“Betty, our mother, said in early 2011 – there will be a time in the not-so-distant future when we, the generation that witnessed the Marathon of Hope, will not be able to share our personal accounts of how Terry moved us and why,” said Terry’s younger brother Darrell Fox. “So we are in transition handing over the Terry Fox story to future generations who never witnessed Terry run, never heard his humble words, and never experienced the Marathon of Hope.”
To date, more than $600 million has been raised worldwide for cancer research in Terry’s name through the annual Terry Fox Run that is held across Canada and around the world.
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