THUNDER BAY – For the past quarter of a century, Jennifer Grundy has been one of the friendly faces greeting newcomers to the city at the Terry Fox Visitor Information Centre.
She’s met people from around the globe, from the remotest, most northern part of Canada to the Australian outback, who have stopped at the site to learn a little more about one of her country’s most iconic figures.
“They want to know where he was from. People don’t know he was born in Winnipeg and grew up in British Columbia,” Grundy said on Friday, following a ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of the visitor centre, which sits adjacent to the Terry Fox statue overlooking the Trans-Canada Highway just outside of Thunder Bay.
“That surprises some people. Not many people don’t know Terry’s story, so I just have to give them a quick refresher. People want to know when he stopped, where he stopped and where he started. A lot of people come in and share their own stories of Terry Fox, they remember seeing him on the road or they’ll share their own personal stories about cancer.”
The facility has also been a gateway to Thunder Bay since it first opened in 1993, between 60,000 and 70,000 people stopping by annually to learn about Fox’s legacy, to collect information about Thunder Bay and Ontario’s northwest, to visit and photograph the statue or simply to stretch their legs and take a long-needed bathroom break.
City tourism manager Paul Pepe said the year-round centre plays an important role in introducing the travelling public to Thunder Bay.
“Over two million people have gone through the doors here at the Terry Fox Visitor Information Centre over the past 25 years,” Pepe said. “It’s an icon to our community. It’s all about the monument, it’s all about Terry’s legacy as a national historic centre.
“But the centre itself plays a critical role in our tourism strategy, in providing information to tens of thousands of visitors each and every year.”
Visitors, who each year insert hundreds of push pins into a map inside the centre to indicate where they’ve travelled from, are always looking for information, where to stay, eat and shop, he added.
“Because we are located right on the Trans-Canada Highway, we are that gateway,” Pepe said.
The centre employs two full-time staff members.
