SUNDRE — A doggedly determined supporter and admirer of Terry Fox who lives west of town checked a major life goal off of his bucket list earlier this summer.
Ken Kerik, who in 2020 trekked roughly 40 kilometres to Olds from west of Sundre for the 40th annual Terry Fox Marathon of Hope and repeated that feat again in 2021, substantially ramped things up this year by cycling to the Terry Fox Memorial in Thunder Bay, Ontario in support of Terry Fox cancer research fundraising efforts.
“I had originally planned on going all the way across Canada (to the east coast),” Kerik told the Albertan late last month. “But when I got as far as Thunder Bay and that took me a month – and I was only a third of the way there – I figured that I’d had enough.”
He left on June 7 and arrived in Thunder Bay on July 3.
“It was good,” Kerik said when asked how the journey went, adding just a few days of rainy weather weren’t enough to dampen his spirits.
“When you guys had all the rain here in June, I was ahead of the storm I guess,” he said.
But cycling some 2,200 kilometres (km) across the Prairies presented challenges other than the risk of getting wet.
“The winds, for sure,” he said in response to being asked what the biggest challenge to overcome was.
“There’s definitely some strong, windy days,” he sad. “So, you really had to plan your days around the wind. Because the last thing you wanted was a strong headwind.”
That largely involved keeping a keen eye on weather forecasts and watching updates on wind conditions hour-by-hour, he said, adding there did not seem to be an ideal time of day to completely avoid wind.
“In the Prairies, I think it’s just (windy) all the time, it seems like,” he said, adding he at one point faced a 50 kilometre an hour headwind while going through Manitoba.
The distance he travelled daily also varied and ranged anywhere between 50 km to a best of 150 km.
“I was trying to average 80 to 100 k a day,” he said.
Finally reaching the Terry Fox Memorial in Thunder Bay was the most rewarding part of the experience, he said.
“Definitely completing it, that was the best,” he said. “And met a lot of good people along the way, which was kind of cool.”
Although people weren’t for example coming out to meet and cheer him on along the road, Kerik said his wife Leanne had adorned their trailer with posters promoting his Ride For Hope that identified his effort as a Terry Fox fundraiser, which became something of a conversational piece with other campers who came over to chat when the couple settled in to rest for the night.
His initial fundraising goal was to reach $10,000, but he did not sound disappointed in the slightest to have come up a little bit shy at almost $8,500.
“I was happy with that for sure,” he said.
In years past, he’s raised anywhere between $1,000 to $2,000 annually, making this year’s effort a personal record.
Kerik, who last month also participated in this year’s community Terry Fox Run in Sundre by completing 10 km with Leanne, said the ride to Thunder Bay was something of a personal goal – an item checked off the proverbial bucket list, so to speak – that he was pleased to accomplish.
However, it’s not a feat he intends to embark upon and repeat again any time soon.
“That was the one big one I was going to do in my life,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll be doing anymore of those.”
But it’s a safe bet he’ll still be seen enthusiastically coming out every year to continue supporting Sundre’s Terry Fox Run and the inspirationally iconic Canadian’s dream to rid the world of cancer.
“I’ll still keep doing those.”
