Terry Fox's 50th birthday marked with replacement statue

The city of Prince George marked what would have been Terry's Fox's 50th birthday by unveiling a statue of the Canadian icon, a year after the original sculpture was destroyed by vandals.

City community services co-ordinator Doug Hofstede said there are more security features around the new Terry Fox statue.

"We have a bunch of roses and other plants that are prickly. They will deter people from getting too close to the statue. He's raised a metre in the air. There's a light on him now and we're debating whether to put in some video surveillance as well," said Hofstede.

The city's original Terry Fox statue was vandalized beyond repair last July in what police believe was an attempt to steal it and sell it as scrap metal.

However, the original was not actually made from bronze, but from a plastic fibreglass resin with some bronze filings mixed in, and the would-be thieves ended up only damaging the statue.

Terry Fox, who lost a leg to cancer, tried to run across the country in 1980 in an effort to raise money for cancer research. He had to abandon his Marathon of Hope on Sept. 1, 1980, when his cancer returned. He died on June 28, 1981.