More than four decades after Terry Fox began his Marathon of Hope, hundreds filled the streets in Winnipeg to honour Fox's enduring legacy and raise money for cancer research.
"We need to continue Terry's legacy," Suzanne Vancauwenberghe said on Sunday, as she took part in the annual Winnipeg Terry Fox Run.
Vancauwenberghe, who is also a co-organizer of the event, was a high school student when she first began following Fox's Marathon of Hope. He began the run in 1980 to raise money for cancer research after previously being diagnosed with osteosarcoma and having his right leg amputated.
She said she still remembers how attached people got to Fox's journey 45 years ago.
"The kids I used to babysit, whenever I would go to their house, I would turn on the news and hopefully there would be a story about where he was," Vancauwenbergh said.
Fox's Marathon of Hope ended on Sept 1, 1980, after he ran 5,373 kilometres over 143 days. Fox was forced to stop his journey after learning his cancer had returned, and had spread to his lungs.
Fox passed away on June 28, 1981.
"When he had to stop his run in Thunder Bay these kids cried, and I had to tell them why he stopped, and that never left me," Vancauwenberghe said.
Vancauwenberghe said this year's 45th anniversary of Fox's marathon will get a lot of attention, but she hopes the push to keep Fox's legacy alive continues year after year.
"Even though this was the 45th anniversary and it's very big, we need the momentum to continue," she said.
"Next year it won't be a milestone year, but we need to keep this fundraising going so that one day maybe there will be a cure to all the cancers, so that other people don't have to lose people they love."
Sachin Katyal, a researcher at Cancer Care Manitoba, said he is always amazed by how influential Fox continues to be in Canada more than four decades after his death.
"It shows that Terry's legacy has endured through all these generations, so we're going to have new generations of people involved in cancer research or volunteering," he said.
"It grows the information and the outreach about cancer, and hopefully over the next few generations there are cures, and ways to impact, so cancer's impact is even lesser."
The Terry Fox Run is held annually across Canada and typically takes place on the second or third Sunday of September, in remembrance of the moment when Fox ended his Marathon of Hope in 1980.
Organizers of Sunday's Terry Fox Run in Winnipeg said the event was a success.
Carissa Robb, the director of community development for the Manitoba and Saskatchewan chapters of the Terry Fox Foundation, said although final numbers are still being counted, she believes that this year's run in Winnipeg raised as much as $100,000, topping last year's mark of more than $99,000 that was raised in Winnipeg.