Photo courtesy CBC
Terry Fox has to be on the very short list of Greatest Canadians. His achievements during his short lifetime and incredible legacy still inspire today around the world. Terry’s Marathon of Hope began with seemingly impossible goals. Barely twenty years old, with a leg recently amputated from cancer, he would run across this country from Newfoundland to British Columbia, travelling the distance of a marathon a day in 1980, raising a dollar from every Canadian with all money going to cancer research.
Despite never reaching the Pacific Ocean, Terry’s accomplishments surpassed anything he could have dreamt. Terry Fox Runs across Canada and around the world have raised over $750 million. He changed our perception of people with physical handicaps. He altered our view of the power of youth with a single act that brought a country together, and defines what it means to be Canadian. The cancer that took Terry’s life is 85% treatable today. My wife, mother and brother are all cancer survivors. I like to think Terry Fox played a part in their success. He gave us hope.
But did you know Terry Fox has a Millbrook connection? The Terry Fox Foundation has reported for decades that “Terry was overcome with exhaustion on July 5 of 1980 and taken off the road in Millwood, Ontario. Terry collapsed in the van from exhaustion- his face brilliant, his breath laboured, his eyes closed as if blocking out the light and the pain with a wrinkled $100 bill, damp from perspiration, clasped tightly in his hands. ”
Millwood Ontario does exist but it is on the north shore of Lake Superior and Terry was nowhere near there in early July. He was in our part of the province. I wrote to the Foundation this summer and asked if it were possible they had mistaken Millwood for Millbrook?
Terry’s brother Fred wrote back, saying “Thank you for bring this to our attention, you are correct Terry would have been in Millbrook, not Millwood, ON around July 5th. Terry arrived in Toronto 39th years ago tomorrow, July 11th. We will get that corrected on the TFF website. Unfortunately we don’t have any photos of Terry in Millbrook or area when he was there in 1980. I wonder if the Peterborough or Millbrook newspapers have any archived photos of Terry from his time there.”
Talking to those who were in Millbrook forty years ago, I have had a variety of responses. There are those who claim Terry ran into Millbrook along King Street. Some say he ran past southbound on the 115 – two lanes at the time – on his way to Pickering. I have also been told he was taken off the road on the 115 and brought into town to rest. As hard as it is to believe in today’s world of photographing everything with your phone, nobody has been able to provide a picture or definitive story of the day. Pull out the old family albums and shoe boxes full of pictures- the kind you had to mail away the film after you took all 24 shots and have developed, then waited a month to get them back from the Kodak plant in Toronto. Explain the process to kids and watch them stare at you in disbelief.
Contact the Millbrook Times or email me at geoff@lastbonfire.com with your recollections or pictures of Terry Fox in Millbrook.
By Geoff Taylor
