Ride For Your Life event draws hundreds to Saskatoon streets in rally for change

An event was held for a wife and a mother who was killed over a year ago in Saskatoon to rally for change and remembrance.

Last May, 33-year-old Natasha Fox, who was a mother and a wife, was killed after being struck by a vehicle while on her bicycle.

“Today is a very large bicycle rally (that brought) the community together to advocate for safer streets in Saskatoon,” said Natasha’s husband Tod Fox.

“Before my wife died, I was ignorant and complacent … I didn’t know much about cyclists, I didn’t know much about advocacy, I didn’t know much about the issues around our infrastructure in the city.”

Fox organized the 2024 Ride for Your Life Saskatoon which drew hundreds of people to the streets of Saskatoon on Saturday. Fox said there are many things’ people can do to prevent deaths from happening.

“This rally is about demanding attention to the problem, demanding that our city council, our leaders and anybody in positions of power to make a change so that nobody has to feel or go through what my family has,” he said.

Fox has been vocal at holding those in positions of power to account by calling for three intersections in the city to be fixed.

Saskatoon Mayor Charlie Clark said the city is making progress to make “real change” at certain intersections.

“We’re going to keep meeting to make sure that progress and momentum continues,” he said. “The more we work together, the more we build solutions.”

The Ride for Your Life event will now become an annual gathering and a permanent memorial has also been set up by the Fox family to keep Natasha’s memory alive.

— with files from Gates Guarin