Terry Fox Run 2025

Inuujaq School held its Terry Fox Run on September 15.  Parents & guardians were invited to attend & participate.  The annual event is held every September, all over the world, as “[a] family friendly, all ages, non-competitive event to raise funds for cancer research.”  The event/campaign has been going strong since 1980 and this year marks its 45^th iteration.

Terry Fox, a Canadian athlete, humanitarian, and cancer activist, ran 5,373km across Canada in 1980 to raise money for cancer research.  He called his initiative the Marathon of Hope.  He lost one of his legs to cancer, but that didn’t stop him from running a marathon a day (42km), for 143 days, raising $1.7 million.  He began in St. John’s, Newfoundland, and reached just outside Thunder Bay, Ontario, before being forced to stop because his cancer returned.  Tragically, he succumbed to the illness and passed away before reaching the Pacific coast.  He was only 22 years old.  His determination & legacy lives on through the Terry Fox Foundation.

The Terry Fox Foundation mailed a box of resources for students & teachers to use during the week leading up to September 15 on the day of the run.  They included posters, activity sheets, and stickers.  Teachers also did their own activities.  The school’s Events Committee organized an afternoon assembly and walk/run around town. 

Terry Fox is well-known in Arctic Bay.  We have the Terry Fox Pass Monument on the Road to Nanisivik, established in the 1980s by the Polar Pacers and the Midnight Marathoners.  Terry Fox’s younger brother once worked at the former Nanisivik Mine.

The assembly began at 1:45pm with a welcome speech from me and an Inuit teacher.  We were the emcees.  I then showed three educational videos about Terry Fox to the audience.  One of them showed Terry’s route from beginning to end.  I then displayed the three walk/run routes created for classes.  They were the same from last year and followed the roads.  The distances were organized as short, medium, & long.  Elementary were assigned the short route, middle school did the medium route, and high school were given the longest route.  Participants could walk and/or run.  Everyone would return to the gym upon completion to get snacks.  Teachers received printed copies of the routes before the assembly.  Participants wrote the names of the people they were running for on large orange stickers and pasted them to their clothing as they headed outside.

A few staff members & I brought out more tables after everyone left and set out juice boxes, granola bars, and trays of Bannock.  The school hired Elders to prepare Bannock all morning.  Students, teachers, parents, & guardians slowly trickled into the gym after some time and helped themselves to snacks & juice.  Students & teachers returned to class after they finished eating & resting.  Several high school students & teachers stayed behind to help clean up the gym.