This year, I retraced Terry Fox’s Marathon of Hope. It rekindled my love of Canada

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Morgan Cameron Ross runs the Old Canada Series.

My almost six-year-old son was once a very curious four-year-old. I remember him coming home one day from junior kindergarten and eagerly telling me who Terry Fox was. It was September, and the Terry Fox Run was about to happen (as it is this year on Sunday, Sept. 14). He told me that Terry was a man whose leg had fallen off in order to help others. (He was so excited to tell me about a new superhero, I didn’t want to clarify how things worked.) I remember being proud of my son, of Terry Fox, and of Canada that afternoon.

I work as a public historian and run the Old Canada Series, a web-based project focusing on Canadian history through photos and, so far, nearly 100 short documentaries. As part of this work, in early April I travelled to St. John’s, Nfld., to begin a five-month journey to follow Terry Fox’s Marathon of Hope, 45 years after he ran it.

I grew up in Burnaby, B.C., where my mom ran alongside Terry Fox in the running club at Simon Fraser University, ages before Terry lost his leg to osteosarcoma and a few years before Terry started his journey across Canada. But it was actually a colleague of mine who suggested the idea of filming short documentaries in locations where Terry had run and releasing them on the same day he had been there. We were chatting about how tumultuous things felt in Canada these days, and how public historians may be able to help. I’ve built my Old Canada Series over the past few years and now reach millions of people each month, proving that people actually do care about Canadian history. I try hard to stay neutral on politics (my wife likely disagrees), yet the issue of nationalism and unity in Canada is something I believe in.

I reached out to the Terry Fox Foundation and was excited to see their interest. They helped immensely with archival film footage, research, and provided access to Terry’s journal and the daily notes taken during the run. And then I set off.

And let me tell you: following The Marathon of Hope has rekindled my love of Canada.

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Firstly, let me clarify that I didn’t run the route, nor did I travel every kilometre (or mile, as Terry preferred to measure it). Instead, I wanted to tap into some of the more idiosyncratic aspects of the 143 days Terry spent running. Over the 20 weeks and 3,339 miles, I filmed and released 11 mini-documentaries about his run. I tried to tell stories that people may not have heard before: that the mayor of Guelph was awestruck by Terry’s beautiful curls; that Terry, his brother Darrell and best friend Doug blamed a lack of speaking French for why they would go days without bathing. I like those kinds of moments.

I had set out to try and tell a new story that I hoped would remind Canadians how awesome we are, how kind and hard-working we can be, and how important it is for us to rally around such concepts. What I hadn’t expected was too much self-reflection or growing pride from myself. Yet there it was. I sat on a very cold barrier along the water in Gambo, Nfld., and pictured Terry turning off the main road toward the small (and now modern) firehouse and town hall. I loved the fact that this tiny town pooling $700 together to support the cause brought him so much excitement and much-needed inspiration during those lonely first few weeks. I thought about how cool it would have been to see so many Canadians lining streets and highways just to give $5 or $10 to a young man from Port Coquitlam. It really is a beautiful thing when you think of it.

Why Terry Fox’s legacy endures, 45 years after his Marathon of Hope

The year 1980 was, in some ways, quite similar to 2025 for Canadians. That May, Quebec held a referendum to decide whether they should pursue a path toward sovereignty. Canadians were in an era of great national uncertainty and the future of the country was very unclear. On Sept. 8, 1980, just a week after Terry was forced to end his run, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, proclaimed in a national TV address, that Canada was “more than the sum of its parts, more than the sum of 10 provinces.” Not only was Canada facing significant worry over the sovereignty of Quebec, premiers across the country were trying to assert and obtain greater powers, and the United States was about to see a landslide victory for Ronald Reagan. Canadians were nervous.

As I filmed in Quebec along Terry’s path, I took note of how the referendum weighed on the Marathon of Hope. The people of Quebec were focused on the May 20 vote and hadn’t really been aware of Terry Fox, nor understood why a young anglophone from B.C. was running along their roads. When questioned about the referendum, Terry would say that he didn’t know enough to comment, but that he loved that the people of Quebec were Canadian. As I drove along the highway west of Montreal toward the Ontario border I gave a lot of thought to this, how when I see separatist sentiments in Canada I get my back up, yet perhaps I should simply tell these people the truth – that I’m proud and happy that they are Canadian.

This past year I have been spending a lot of time considering what it means to me to be Canadian. While retracing the Marathon of Hope I let myself see Canada in a different manner. I pulled over on a dirt road west of Nipigon, Ont., and looked at an old, rusty bulldozer and wondered if Terry had run past it; I talked to teenagers at a skate park in Madoc, Ont., and asked them if they knew Terry had been there; I spent a few extra minutes in Outer Cove, near St John’s, wondering where Terry had lost his jug of sea water the day they started. I engaged with – and reinvested in – my country.

Following Terry Fox’s Marathon of Hope has been the most rewarding thing I’ve done in ages. I think Canadians need to talk more about our strengths. I think we need more four-year-olds bragging to their dads about our country’s superheroes. We have many.