While Terry Fox’s ‘Marathon of Hope’ had begun with great fanfare in St. John’s, as he ran across rural Newfoundland very few people turned out. In those early stages the public was generally unaware of his run.
He had turned down corporate sponsorships for his run –including from giant multinationals like McDonalds– in an effort to be neutral and principled.
As he ran across rural Newfoundland, he began to wonder if that had been a mistake.
In Port-aux-Basques, his spirits were buoyed. 10,000 people –the entire population of the town– showed up to greet him, and had raised $10,000.
In Nova Scotia, Terry Fox diverted his course to run to a Dartmouth vocational school. His Marathon of Hope had inspired a group of about 50 students who had raised $3000 dollars all by themselves.
Unfortunately, that sum was one-fifth of all of the money he would raise in Nova Scotia. That province would be by far the least successful part of his whole run, and something he described as “rather disappointing.”
By the time he reached PEI, Terry Fox was increasingly struggling with poor health, and was seized by severe dizzy spells.
Nonetheless he persevered, and his spirits were lifted when a large and boisterously upbeat crowd showed up in Charlottetown to greet him. As he struggled to run through the town’s streets while battling dizziness, hundreds of Charlottetowners ran alongside him.
By the time he arrived on the outskirts of Moncton, things were looking up after the nadir of his trip that was Nova Scotia.
In PEI and New Brunswick he had raised considerably more money than he had in Nova Scotia. (Newfoundland, however, had eclipsed all the provinces so far in donations by a considerable amount.)
However, as Terry Fox approached the outskirts of Moncton, his prosthetic leg broke down.
Fox recounted to John Wishart of the Moncton Times what happened next: “It needed to be taken to Fredericton for repairs and a flyer with the Moncton Flying Club took it up there, waited while it was being repaired and brought it back last night, free.”
That night the City of Moncton threw a reception in his honour in which Terry Fox declared: “Each day I do my best, and just keep saying to myself not to give up … No matter what happens, I just have to keep going … I’m going to make it to Vancouver!”
The Wandalyn Hotels hosted Terry Fox for free every night in New Brunswick.
The Moncton Times declared that Terry Fox was the “walking” example of the word courage.
In Saint John, Terry Fox was met by his 17 year old brother Darrell who would join him for the rest of his run, even though it meant he’d miss his high school graduation.
He told the Telegraph-Journal's Gretchen Drummie: “I know that I’ve missed out on my graduation, but I feel that being with Terry is one of the greatest things that is going to happen to me in my life.”
Unfortunately, there had been a dreadful mix up between the organizers of the planners of the events to greet Terry Fox in Saint John. Assorted organizers had assumed the others were in charge of organizing people to show up to meet Terry Fox in the city.
In the end nobody had organized anything.
In a panic, The Mayor of Saint John rushed around to the city’s radio stations, working to inform Saint Johners that Terry Fox was soon arriving in the city.
Despite the chaotic organization, the Saint John event was a success.
Hundreds of people showed up lining the streets and running alongside him. Many tried to directly press money into his hands as he ran.
Perhaps Saint Johners came off as a bit too supportive of his run rather than his goal of funding cancer research because he noted to a reporter: “People have been great along my entire route. They honk their car horns and wave. The problem is to get them to realize that I’m doing this for a purpose and not just for myself.”
Drummie reported Fox’s daily schedule: “The day begins at 4am and Terry starts running at 5am. At 8:30 he takes a 2 ¼ hour break and has breakfast. He then begins again at 11a,. At 2pm he takes an hour rest and “gets caught up with things.” Then from 3pm to 5pm it’s the “home stretch.” … Terry runs rain or shine … He has been running 29 miles a day but plans on raising that in the near future.”
Drummie also alluded to his struggles: “Terry has had a few difficulties along the way. He has had a bit of pain in his stump due to cyst-like lumps which form under the skin and rub against the bone.”
When he was in Fredericton on June 2nd, 1980, Terry Fox gave an interview to Jeff Childs of the Daily Gleaner in which noted that he was losing weight rapidly, eating poorly, and struggling with his health.
Fox also mentioned that the fundraising aspects of his run were taking up too much of time he should be sleeping and that he is starting to get worn out, saying “I’m not getting enough sleep and when you run you need your rest.”
Childs asked about his motivation, to which Terry Fox replied:
“Some people think I’m crazy. But they don’t understand what I’ve been through. … After what I went through with my therapy, and watching some of my friends die because of cancer, I had to do it. … When you see others dying you get a different view about living.”
In 2017 Terry Fox’s brother Darrell, who had flown in to Saint John to accompany his brother on his run decades earlier, would return to the Port City.
Donate to the Terry Fox Foundation to support Terry's dream of a world without cancer here.
