TFLO coin

LOOKING 4 TERRY FOX MOUNTAIN

Terry Fox is Canada's son,
shining like the sun,
above our highest mountains.

Lately I've been thinking alot about Terry Fox - as can be seen in the articles HONOUR TERRY FOX NOT LENIN-MAO and TERRY'S FRIEND DOUG CARRIES TORCH and MY TERRY FOX MEMORIES

A few days after meeting Terry Fox's best friend - Doug Alward, who drove the van during the Marathon of Hope - I went cross-country-skiing with a friend. I complained to her about there being a statue of Communist tyrants in Vancouver - in time for the Olympics, for all the world to see - instead of a statue of Terry Fox, Canada's greatest athlete.

Then SHE complained to ME about the condition of the Terry Fox plaque on the Yellowhead highway going from BC to Alberta. I asked her what she was talking about, as I've travelled that route many times and never seen anything to do with Terry Fox. She said it was in a drive-in rest area - on the left side of the highway - just after you leave Valemount. She said the wood on the plaque was starting to peel, and the picture of Terry Fox was fading. Both she and her mother had been upset about it when they saw it - and that was about five years ago.

I told her I was amazed because I'd never noticed the plaque before. But she said there isn't much of a sign announcing that it's there, and unless you needed to rest or use the outhouse, you'd probably just drive by. She said the plaque was there to point out where to look to see the mountain named after Terry Fox.

This totally surprised me too, because I'd forgotten that Terry Fox had a mountain in the Rockies named after him.

Godcidently, I told her, I'd be driving to Alberta in a couple of weeks (to see our eldest son, daughter-in-law and grandson) and would definitely stop at the Terry Fox Rest Area to see the plaque and the mountain.

In the meantime, I was reading TERRY FOX: HIS STORY by Leslie Scrivener - the new revised edition that came out in 2005 and which I'd bought in a used bookstore.

TF Scrivener TF Scrivener 2

I had other Terry Fox books on hold at the library. It was the perfect time to be brushing up on Terry Fox history because the Vancouver 2010 Paralympics had started on March 13th and this time Terry Fox's parents were included in the Opening Ceremony.

watch Betty & Rolly Fox carry torch at 2010 Paralympics, YouTube
(watch & listen to video of Terry Fox speaking)

watch computer-generated hologram of Terry Fox at Paralympic Opening Ceremony, YouTube
(Terry doing a hop, skip & jump from the afterlife into BC Place Stadium)

I tried to rent the 2005 movie, TERRY that Doug Alward had told us about, but it wasn't available anywhere. Instead I rented the original movie, THE TERRY FOX STORY (on VHS) and loved it as much as when it first came out in 1983 (and it's still a real tear-jerker).

TFox VHSa TFox VHSb

And, sure enough, it mentions that a mountain was named after Terry Fox (which means I knew about it way-back-when and then over the years forgot). It's mentioned in the last scene of the movie where Bill Vigars, the Canadian Cancer Society representative (played by Robert Duvall) is in voice-over talking about Terry Fox shorly after he died. On the screen we see Terry - dressed in blue jeans and a blue-jean jacket - walking alone along an empty race-track.

Below I've transcribed the excerpt:

     "...I mean, he was so simple and honest. If you want to run across Canada, you just go out and do it. There's no trick; there's no magic. But he was embarrassed when people started calling him a hero for doing what he loved. He said he felt like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, having one big adventure...you know...going places he'd never been before. He hurt all the time, but it didn't matter. He could quit any time, but he didn't.

     "Back in Vancouver Terry took his treatments and went home. I don't know if he knew he was dying, but if he did, he didn't show it. He went to see some Gung Fu movies...he felt them pretty dumb. He went for beers. He horsed around with his family and friends. And in January he even went back to the old Hasting's track up the street.

     "I mean, it's amazing, this kid. I mean, they had a big telethon and everything; they raised twenty-four million dollars - a dollar for every Canadian. I remember, they gave him the Order of Canada. They even named a MOUNTAIN after him. I mean, can you imagine that ... a whole mountain. And can you just imagine how he would have loved that one? He was a good kid. I don't want you to forget him."

[end quoting from the 1983 movie The Terry Fox Story]

By the time we left for Alberta I had a copy of the book TERRY by Douglas Coupland which we took with us on the trip.

Terry Cover

On page 149 there's a photo of MOUNT TERRY FOX.

TFox Mtn

In 1981, not far from Valemount and 80 kilometeres (50 miles) west of Jasper, Alberta,
a 2,639-metre (8,658-foot) peak in the Rocky Mountains
was named Mount Terry Fox in Terry's honour
.

It takes about three hours to get to Valemount from the town where we live and, as usual, we listened to a booktape while driving along. The last time we'd travelled this route - back in December during Christmas holidays - we'd listened to THE LONG WALK about life in Lenin's and Stalin's Communist Russia - where millions of innocent people were sent to the Siberian Gulag (slave labour camps) where they were starved and worked to death.

This time, along a similar theme (and even a similar title) we listened to THE LONG MARCH about the same brutal situation in China under Mao, an adherent of Lenin, who led the Communist Party (with help from the Capitalist West) to power there.

China DVD F China DVD B

These aren't particularly relaxing stories to be listening to, but the system of Communism is a huge component of many of Orwell's books - especially NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR (around which my ORWELL TODAY website is based) and for research purposes I have to knock off the required reading - and listening  to the books, instead of reading them - is a great way of doing that. And, of course, it was the erection of the statue of Lenin and Mao in Vancouver during the Olympics that had led to my present interest in Terry Fox. See CANADA COMMIE LENIN-MAO STATUE and LENIN-MAO MOCK CANADA OLYMPICS and HONOUR TERRY FOX NOT LENIN-MAO

As soon as we passed through Valemount we started looking on the left for the Terry Fox Rest Area and about 5 miles up the road we came upon it.

TFRest Car TFRest Plaque TFRest Road

The first two photos show the plaque (which has obviously been well maintained since my friend saw it five years ago) with a picture of Terry Fox superimposed in front of the tall, jagged white peak of Mount Robson and to the right the lower, smoother peak of Mount Terry Fox.

We didn't get a photo of Mount Terry Fox from here because we were pointing the camera in the wrong direction - thinking it was in the mountain range behind the plaque, when in fact (as we learned later) it's in the mountain range across the highway facing the plaque. That's why none of the mountains we were looking at looked like Mount Terry Fox. Confused yet?

On the plaque there's an inset showing how to climb Mount Terry Fox by following The Terry Fox Trail which is accessed by crossing to the other side of the highway and entering Mount Terry Fox Provincial Park. This only added to our confusion, thinking - as we did - that Mount Terry Fox was on the left side of the highway, not the right.

The third photo is of me standing in the middle of the Yellowhead highway opposite the exit from the Terry Fox Rest Area (marked by the two white posts). My back is facing north, the direction we'd be heading before turning east to climb through the Rocky Mountains dividing BC and Alberta.

The rest of the drive was uneventful, and by the time we arrived at our destination five hours later we were half-way through listening to the nine CDs.

Three days later, on our return trip home, we planned to stop again at the Terry Fox Rest Area and read the plaque more carefully, hoping to figure out which mountain to point the camera at.

TFLO map

As we were coming down the big hill toward the junction - after passing through Jasper Park in Alberta and then Mount Robson Park in BC - we saw a sign on the left saying MOUNT TERRY FOX REST AREA and pulled in. But this was not the same one we'd stopped at the other day, which had been near Valemount about 30 miles further down the road.

TFLO left TFLO center TFLO sign

There was a huge, three-panelled kiosk-looking plaque with pictures and the story of Terry Fox's Marathon of Hope.

TFVP 3-panel

I was in the middle of reading it when my husband came along with the camera and said there was another Terry Fox display unit at the other end of the walkway.

TFLO rock TFLO panel

No sooner had I started reading THAT one than he returns again to say he's found another plaque, this one displayed on a rock. And while I'm standing on the rail overlooking the rock - to snap the photo - he shouts to say there's a plaque on the back of the plaque he'd just shown me. So I rushed back over there and took a picture - with him in it - in an attempt to nail him down from running off and finding yet another one.

TFLO show mtn

We stood for a moment, reading the inscription beneath the iconic picture of Terry Fox running:

Once or twice in a lifetime someone special comes along
who touches our hearts, deepens our faith in humanity and
changes forever the way we look at the world;
someone who exhibits courage, selflessness and tenacity -
someone who fights for a dream and works to make it come true.
Terry Fox was that kind of person.
He touched a common chord that spoke to us
of goodness and possibilities,
of defiance in the face of an enemy,
of human decency and most of all of generosity.

Then we walked down to the snow-covered area where picnic tables are scattered amongst the trees. The plaques had said that this area provided the best view of MOUNT TERRY FOX.

TFLO panorama

We looked at the mountains, surrounding us on all sides, and wondered which one was Mount Terry Fox. Then - as if in answer to our query - we noticed a "MT. TERRY FOX" sign pointing in the direction of a distant, white-topped mountain directly in front of us. It was nestled in the "V" of two much closer mountains. "THAT'S IT, THAT'S IT!" we shouted in unison.

It was an overcast day and the white of the mountain blended in with the cloud-covered sky, as can be seen in the photos we took - two of which are joined together, above, to give a wider view.

While we'd been reading the plaques and taking photos, vehicles had been coming in and out of the rest area and we'd noticed that, in all cases, their occupants had taken various amounts of time to stand around and read the displays. Some of the people were young and we wondered if they were learning about Terry Fox for the first time; while others, like ourselves, were older and probably refreshing their memories of him. As we pulled out and got back on the highway, we wondered how it was that we could have overlooked this lookout all these years. But in future trips to Alberta (next one coming up in May) we'll pull in again and take a photo of MOUNT TERRY FOX on a sunny day.

When we got back home the DVD of the movie TERRY, that I'd ordered, had arrived in the mail.

TFox DVD TFox DVDb

It was just as good as the original movie but developed different aspects of the story. The actors who played Terry Fox and Doug Alward were great, as were the actors in the first one. I definitely recommend watching both.

I finished reading TERRY FOX: HIS STORY by Leslie Scrivener and TERRY by Douglas Coupland. Then, not wanting to leave any stone unturned, I borrowed TERRY FOX: A STORY OF HOPE by Maxine Trottier from the library.

TFox Kids F TFox Kids B

It's written for the young reader and is a great read-aloud book, with lots of great pictures of Terry Fox, most of which I'd never seen before.

A few days after getting back from Alberta, I was nordic-walking around the same park where we'd watched Doug Alward run in the Master's race three weeks previously. It inspired me to walk faster and put more distance in my stride, to treat it more like a race (against myself). Then I started thinking that I needed a fitness goal to strive for. And suddenly it occurred to me to make hiking The Terry Fox Trail my goal - the trail we'd seen outlined on the plaque at the rest area near Valemount.

I went home and phoned my friend Carol - Doug Alward's sister - and asked her if she'd join me in this physical fitness challenge and she readily agreed, as did two other friends - all of us with our own symbolic Terry Fox connections. So, to make a long story short, we plan to hike the trail up Mount Terry Fox (as far as each of us is capable of going) sometime this summer. When it happens, I'll post the story and the photos of our climb on the website. So stay tuned!

Finally, in closing, I'd like to share a photo that symbolizes, to me, what Terry Fox represents to all Canadians. It's of Mount Terry Fox, with a Terry Fox One-Dollar Coin placed in the sky above it.

TFLO coin

Terry Fox is Canada's son, shining like the sun, above our highest mountains. ~ Jackie Jura

...continued at CLIMBING TERRY FOX MOUNTAIN


TERRY FOX ATLANTIC WATER JUG
OuterCoveMemorial TerryDougSJ TerryWaterBottle
(began 3,339-mile run in Outer Cove Newfoundland)
Email/YouTube, Oct 6, 2017
watch Terry Fox Run Across Canada montage

FOX FRIEND ALWARD CHANGED CANADA
TF Mtn Statue AlwardInfluenceFox TerryRunning
(drove van 143 days as Terry ran 5,373 kms)
Email, Feb 8, 2015

Rod Stewart Tribute Song to Terry Fox, Don't Ever Give Up On Your Dream

Mount Terry Fox Provincial Park is located 6 miles (10 km) due north of Valemount, between the Yellowhead Highway 5 and Highway 16 to the British Columbia-Alberta border. There is no road access into the park. A Highway 16 viewpoint situated 7 km (4 miles) west of the west gate of Mt. Robson Provincial Park provides a view of the mountain.

Mount Terry Fox Provincial Park, Valemount, BC Rockies
The beautiful Mount Terry Fox lies adjacent to the western boundary of Mt. Robson Provincial Park, encompassing Mount Terry Fox (8,700 feet/2,650 metres). Mount Terry Fox is dedicated to the memory of Terry Fox of Port Coquitlam, British Columbia.... The mountain that bears his name will serve forever as an enduring and fitting memorial to a young Canadian's determination, selflessness, and courage. A challenging 8 miles (13 km) round-trip hike to Mount Terry Fox (rough and steep in sections) leads to the alpine zone from its trailhead north of Valemount. A sign marks the trailhead. Staggeringly impressive views will reward hikers all along the route....

Mount Terry Fox Viewpoint (Along the way to Mount Robson you will also be able to see Mount Terry Fox from Hwy 16. There is a vehicle pull out available on Hwy 16 about 7 km (4 miles) west of entering Mount Robson Provincial Park. The vehicle pullout features a lookout point if you would like to take photos of Mount Robson and Mount Terry Fox.

Dollar coin honours Terry Fox, CBC, Mar 14, 2005
The inspirational one-legged runner who asked each Canadian to give a dollar to his Marathon of Hope has wound up 25 years later on the face of a $1 coin. The Royal Canadian Mint unveiled the new Terry Fox coin at a ceremony at Simon Fraser University on Monday that was carried live on CBC Newsworld and as a webcast, and was shown to children in schools across the country. The new dollar, which will go into general circulation on April 4, is the first Canadian coin to have the image of a Canadian on it. The Queen's image is on the obverse side.... Terry Fox's brother Darrell, who was at the ceremony along with his parents and two other siblings, said Terry would have been overwhelmed and embarrassed by the coin. He suggested that instead of calling it a loonie, Canadians should refer to the new coin as a Terry.

TerryFox Stamp TERRY FOX STAMPS, issued April 13, 1982 and January 17, 2000 (...The youth of Terry Fox made his heroic achievement all the more admirable, and Vancouver graphic artist Friedrich Peter, an instructor at the Emily Carr College of Art and Design, has conveyed both these ideas in his dramatic stamp design...)

Mount Terry Fox Wilderness Park, The Montreal Gazette, June 25, 1982 (...In British Columbia Premier Bill Bennett announced yesterday a wilderness park has been established around Mount Terry Fox to honour the memory of the one-legged runner. Mount Terry Fox Provincial Park consists of 1, 930 hectares (4,767 acres) surrounding the recently-dedicated mountain in the Selwyn Range of the Rockies)

Mountain in Rockies named for Terry Fox, Ottawa Citizen, Jul 7, 1981
The British Columbia government has named a mountain after the one-legged runner Terry Fox who lost his heroic battle with cancer last month. Premier Bennett told the B.C. Legislature the mountain, located in the Rockies, 10-1/2 kilometres north of Valemount and 21 kilometres south-west of Mount Robson will be an everlasting symbol of Fox's Marathon of Hope. "Terry fought his fight and he shared that fight with us in his Marathon of Hope," Bennett said Monday. "That became his mountain - his mountain to climb." The premier said "mountains are symbols to all of us of daring to try things that must be conquered." "That became his mountain to climb, we felt that nothing would be more fitting than at this time to name a mountain in honour of Terry Fox." Bennett said 2,650-metre Mount Terry Fox is visible from the Yellowhead Highway. A sign pointing to the previously unnamed mountain is expected to be erected next week, after the name is made official by an order in council....

Terry Fox Dies, Ottawa Citizen, Jun 28, 1981 (There was a death in the family Sunday, and Canada mourns. Flags fly at half-mast and tributes pour in after Terry's four-year battle with cancer ended early Sunday...

Fox condition worsens, Daytona Beach, Jun 23, 1981
Canadian marathoner Terry Fox has developed pneumonia and the 22 year-old cancer victim's condition is deteriorating, the medical director of Royal Columbian Hospital said Saturday. Fox, admitted to the hospital June 19 with chest infection, is being treated with several drugs to prevent fluid from accumulating on his lungs and around his heart. Dr Ladislav Antonik said Friday that Fox was pleased about the stamp commemorating his cross-country run. Usually the only living persons honoured on a stamp are royalty, but the federal government said Thursday it will bend the rules and issue a stamp to commemorate Fox's Marathon of Hope. Fox has always tried to shift attention away from himself to the reason for the run and the need for funds to back cancer research...

Fox 'not doing too well, feeling more pain': doctor, Ottawa Citizen, Jun 22, 1981
Terry Fox is in increasing pain and under heavy sedation today as he continues his battle against cancer in Royal Columbian Hospital.... Fox, 22, was readmitted to hospital on Friday morning for treatment of a bronchitis-like chest infection and re-evaluation of his condition...Fox parents remain at his bedside "pretty well around the clock" and are very supportive. Fox spends most of his time sleeping in his fourth-floor private room, partly because of the sedation. "Terry has been fighting his cancer right up to the present time," Dr Hefflinger said...


TERRY FOX ATLANTIC WATER JUG

INUKSHUK & TERRY FOX STATUES

FOX FRIEND ALWARD CHANGED CANADA

CANADA'S KOREAN WAR TRAIN WRECK

TERRY FOX NEWFIE VODKA

CLIMBING TERRY FOX MOUNTAIN

TERRY FOX MONUMENTAL PERSON

LOOKING 4 TERRY FOX MOUNTAIN

MY TERRY FOX MEMORIES

TERRY'S FRIEND DOUG CARRIES TORCH

HONOUR TERRY FOX NOT LENIN-MAO

Jackie Jura
~ an independent researcher monitoring local, national and international events ~

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