Terry Fox on the Marathon of Hope. (Image From www.TerryFox.org)

By Chris Brown

No Terry Fox Run in Medicine Hat this year

Sep 14, 2022 | 1:26 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – A tradition in our community for close to 40 years will come to an end this year.

This Sunday, Sept. 18, is National Terry Fox Run Day but Medicine Hat will not be hosting a run in 2022.

Christie Krawchuk, manager of community development with the Terry Fox Foundation, says she hasn’t been able to get in touch with the local organizer of last year’s event or the group that has been involved in the run for years.

“We’ll ask people this year to participate on their own,” she says. “We did it the last two years: One Day. Your Way. So whether that’s around the block, running a marathon or anything in between just in honour of Terry and all that he’s done for us and how far he’s gotten us to this point.”

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Medicine Hat is still supporting Fox and his goal of a world without cancer. Some area schools will host runs and Krawchuk says even though it’s “a run that doesn’t exist,” the community has raised even more money for the Terry Fox Foundation this year than last.

Krawchuk says it’s disappointing an organized run won’t take place in Medicine Hat this year but is looking ahead to 2023.

“For sure for next year we want to get something going and need to get something going back in Medicine Hat. I know the run will be missed this year,” she says.” You guys have raised almost $168,000 in Medicine Hat for cancer research. So very important to us and we want to keep it going.”

She says anyone who wants to take on the task can reach out through the Contact Us page on the Terry Fox Foundation website.

“Certainly hosting a run with a one-man show is doable and it’s fine we do it in lots of communities but if we could get a committee together and have a couple of people running the show and at the helm to get things going, it would be, you know, many hands makes less work,” she says.

Krawchuk says the money raised for cancer research through the Terry Fox Run is vital maybe even more important now. She says things have changed so drastically during COVID, and it’s possible people might be diagnosed later because of the strains on health care in Canada.

In 1980 Fox’s Marathon of Hope captivated the country. That year, he began a cross-Canada run to raise money for cancer on April 12 in St. John’s, Nfld. He was forced to stop on Sept. 1 near Thunder Bay, Ont. after his cancer spread to his lungs. He had run 143 days and 5,373 kilometres.

Before Fox died on June 28, 1981, he had achieved his once unimaginable goal of $1 from every Canadian. His efforts the previous year were the genesis of the Terry Fox Run that would ignite cancer research in Canada. More than $850 million has been raised since 1980, and bringing hope and health to millions of Canadians.