Terry Fox during the Marathon of Hope, 1980. Photo by Jeremy Gilbert, via Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain).
On Sunday, September 20, 2026, thousands of Canadians in nearly 600 communities laced up for the 46th annual Terry Fox Run. Across the country, people came together once again to raise money for cancer research. Terry would have been 68 this year. He never got past 22, and somehow he’s still the one leading the pack.
The run nobody noticed
Terry lost his right leg to cancer at 18, then decided to run across Canada to raise awareness and money for research. He was inspired by the people he met in the cancer ward, and he wrote that somewhere the hurting must stop.
On April 12, 1980, he dipped his artificial leg in the Atlantic Ocean at St. John’s, Newfoundland. At first, few paid attention, but soon the whole country was watching. He covered 5,373 km in 143 days, an average of nearly 38 km every single day, before cancer in his lungs forced him to stop outside Thunder Bay on September 1, 1980. As he headed home for treatment, he promised: “I’m gonna do my very best. I’ll fight. I promise I won’t give up.”
A dollar from every Canadian
Terry hoped to raise a dollar for every person in Canada, and the Marathon of Hope reached that milestone on February 1, 1981, at $24.17 million. He was the youngest person ever named a Companion of the Order of Canada. He died on June 28, 1981, one month before his 23rd birthday.
But the story didn’t end there. On September 2, 1980, the day after Terry stopped running, Four Seasons founder Isadore Sharp sent a telegram to the Fox family committing to an annual run in Terry’s name. That first Terry Fox Run took place on September 13, 1981, eleven weeks after Terry’s death. More than 300,000 people took part, and it raised $3.5 million.
What he built in Canada
A billion dollars: On World Cancer Day, February 4, 2026, the Terry Fox Foundation announced it had passed $1 billion raised for cancer research.
A generation of kids: The Foundation engages more than 20,000 volunteers and 3.5 million students in nearly 10,000 fundraising events a year. For many of us, our first Terry Fox Run was in a school gym or field.
A landscape that remembers him: A peak in the Rockies was named Mount Terry Fox in 1981, and an 83 km stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Thunder Bay became the Terry Fox Courage Highway. Schools, roads and sports fields across the country carry his name.
A place in the national story: A 1999 national survey named him Canada’s greatest hero, and in 2004 he finished second only to Tommy Douglas on CBC’s The Greatest Canadian.
What he did for the world
Terry’s run didn’t stay inside our borders. The Terry Fox Run is now held in countries around the world, and it is often described as the world’s largest one-day fundraiser for cancer research. A profile in Mayo Clinic Proceedings noted that his story was known to millions in Canada and around the world.
And the money has been put to work. By 2022, Terry Fox Run fundraising had supported roughly 1,300 cancer research projects, and today the Foundation backs the Marathon of Hope Cancer Centres Network, which aims to unlock the largest collection of cancer data in Canada. It’s hard to trace any single dollar to any single breakthrough. But decades of research funded by people walking, running and cycling in local parks and schoolyards are part of why cancer patients today have better odds than Terry did.
Why it still matters
Terry never got to finish his run across Canada. We did, and we keep finishing it every September. He showed that one person with a clear purpose can move a whole country to act. That still feels like the most Canadian thing there is.
If you haven’t yet, you can still donate or get involved at [terryfox.org](https://terryfox.org).
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Terry_Fox
Sources: [Terry Fox Foundation: $1 billion milestone](https://terryfox.org/media-centre/terry-fox-foundation-surpasses-1-billion-funds-raised/) · [Terry Fox Foundation: 46th annual Run](https://terryfox.org/media-centre/46th-annual-terry-fox-run-to-unite-canadians-in-support-of-cancer-research-on-sunday-september-20-2026/) · [The Canadian Encyclopedia: Terry Fox timeline](https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/timeline/terry-fox) · [CBC: Terry Fox by the numbers](https://www.cbc.ca/1.866909)