Rick Hansen
Courage in Motion

In 1997, Rick Hansen marked the tenth anniversary of his completion of a 40,000 km wheelchair trip through 34 countries that had started in Vancouver, March 21, 1985. Known as the “Man in Motion Tour,” the tenth anniversary was celebrated by visits to 17 Canadian cities to thank Canadians and let them know how the $24 million that the tour raised helped make Canada one of the world’s leading countries researching neurotrauma. The tour to was also staged to encourage still further funding. He told Lindsay Kines in a May 1997 Vancouver Sun interview: “It’s only a matter of time, people and money” before “we can see people with spinal cord injuries have a chance to walk away from an accident that would have left them in a wheelchair ten years ago.” 

Rick Hansen left Vancouver in a wheelchair on March 21, 1985 to travel the equivalent of the world's circumference. His grueling journey to increase public support and awareness of the great capabilities of people with disabilities raised more than 20 million dollars for spinal cord research. Viewed here at Cape Speare, Newfoundland,  the last leg of his "Man in Motion" tour, Hansen had already journeyed through 34 countries including China, Australia, Russia, and Great Britain. When he returned to Vancouver, his hometown, May 22, 1987, he had truly completed one of this century's heroic odysseys. [Photo, courtesy The Toronto Star]
A decade later, it is still accurate to describe Rick Hansen as a “Man in Motion.” The original Legacy Fund is still intact, and, to date, $20.8 million in interest has been awarded in the form of grants to support the areas of spinal cord research, rehabilitation, and wheelchair sports. In addition, Rick Hansen has spearheaded dozens of initiatives and partnerships which have generated another $62.8 million, including the Neurotrauma Initiative, which was presented to provincial governments during the Tenth Anniversary tour. This initiative raised $37.7 million for provincial neurotrauma funds over the next 5 years, supporting neurotrauma research, rehabilitation, and prevention programs.

A native of British Columbia, Rick was a 15-year-old avid sports enthusiast hitchhiking home to Williams Lake from a fishing trip in 1973, when he was thrown from the back of a pickup truck and severed his spinal cord. After several months in hospital, he returned home, graduated from high school, and, in 1976, entered the University of British Columbia. His first year was spent in the Faculty of Arts as the university could not see him graduating in physical education. By the second year, however, his participation in wheelchair basketball and volleyball and his victories in wheelchair marathon races that eventually resulted in winning 19 international victories – including three world titles – made authorities reconsider their decision.

The marathon races that took him to the United States, Great Britain, Australia, and Japan gave him the confidence to consider wheeling around the world. He had been a close friend and admirer of Terry Fox who earlier had launched his “Marathon of Hope” walk across Canada in 1980. Hansen, hoping to make a world tour in a wheelchair, in 1984 began putting together his team of friends.

Numerous problems had to be overcome: major ones were finding sponsors to fund a four-man team required for the trip and establishing an anchor organization in Vancouver to handle details. Slowly everything came together. Original plans were to end the tour before the close of Vancouver’s Expo 86, but delays made that impossible if he were to travel a distance equal to circling the globe.

In the next two years, two months, and two days, Hansen wheeled 40,072 kilometres (13,831 of them across Canada) and kept a diary that recorded not only highlights but also such details as the number of gloves worn out (94), flat tires (126), gifts received besides money (991 baseball caps, 277 T-shirts, 128 sweatshirts, 113 pennants, 47 flags, 73 toys, and 234 plaques). For much of the tour he wheeled 120 kilometres a day which meant an average of 9000 pushes on the wheels of the chair built for him and sometimes adjusted daily to meet his needs.

While he got souvenirs galore, the tour had raised only $174,000 for the Legacy Fund by the time he returned to Canada in August 1986. But Newfoundland was the beginning of the highly successful fundraising segment of the journey. Leaving Cape Speare on August 25, the day before his 29th birthday, he raised more than $4,700 the first day. At St. John’s, Premier Brian Peckford presented him with a $10,000 cheque; before the tour left Newfoundland, $97,397.93 was realized.

Money poured in as he wheeled across Canada. In Toronto, two special fund-raising dinners reaped thousands, and, in Ottawa, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney presented a cheque for $1,000,000 from the federal government. By the time he reached the British Columbia border, donations had amounted to more than $10 million and, when Premier Bill Vander Zalm said the government would match the amount raised by the people of the province, the people responded by giving and pledging a total of $5.4 million.

His homecoming acknowledged him as a hero and a celebrity, but he was not about to rest on his laurels. He married Amanda, a physiotherapist he had met while still a patient and a key member of the team. They settled in Vancouver where he became the President’s advisor on disability issues at the University of British Columbia. In 1997, Rick Hansen and UBC created the Rick Hansen Institute, whose mission is to provide leadership in the field of disability in the areas of fund development, awareness, and programs, with a focus on spinal cord injury.

His six-week trip to 17 cities across Canada in 1997 culminated in the unveiling, at Vancouver’s new sports arena, General Motors Place, of a statue of him, only one of many honours over the past decade. These include sharing Canada’s Athlete of the Year award with Wayne Gretzky in 1983, being named a Companion of the Order of Canada, receiving two honorary doctor of law degrees from UBC and the University of Calgary, and being the recipient in 1994 of the $125,000 Royal Bank Award, which declared in a full-page advertisement, “His courage heightened the world’s awareness of the abilities of people with disabilities.”

Mel James