Twenty-five years ago, Rick Hansen sat in a Vancouver shopping mall pondering a twinge in his injured shoulder and the rainy, cool weather outside and the 110-plus kilometres a day he was planning to propel himself daily in his wheelchair.
It was Day 1 of the Man In Motion tour.
"I was thinking 'What the heck have you gotten yourself into, this is a crazy idea, you're having trouble just thinking about finishing the day,"' he said Sunday, on its 25th anniversary.
Some 26 months later, Hansen had journeyed across 34 countries and four continents.
"Big dreams don't happen without a lot of challenges," he said.
With that spirit as inspiration, Hansen launched a new $200 million campaign for spinal cord injury research running until the anniversary of his tour's end, on May 22, 2012.
"What better way to celebrate the 25th anniversary than to launch the greatest challenge yet, to be able to take what we've developed together as a team and to be able to extend and fill the gap that's needed in this community, in this country, in this world," he told a group gathered at Blusson Spinal Cord Centre.
"We need to work together, we need to collaborate and break down the barriers and silos, we need to shrink this world so we can accelerate progress and so that more people will walk away again."
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell, who attended the launch, showed their support for the project on the closing day of the Winter Paralympic Games.
Ottawa will provide $13.5 million over three years to the project, while B.C. will contribute $25 million.
"We are proud to support the work of someone like (Hansen) who has devoted his life to challenging the preconceptions about what those with spinal cord injuries can achieve," Harper said.
Hansen says his new global institute will fund and formalize research centres across Canada and then branch out to connect those around world.
