The keel of newbuilding number 107 was laid at the Burrard-Yarrows Vancouver shipyard on 15 June 1982 and the vessel was launched on 23 April 1983 as "Terry Fox". While the other BeauDril icebreakers and drilling units were given names drawn from the Northern Territories native languages, "Terry Fox" was named after Terrance Stanley "Terry" Fox (1958–1981), a Canadian athlete, humanitarian and cancer research activist known for his 1980 Marathon for Hope, an attempted cross-Canada run to raise money and awareness for cancer research, after losing his right leg to osteosarcoma. The icebreaker was completed on 16 September 1983, slightly behind the original schedule which called for delivery in April when Gulf Canada's exploratory drilling program was set to begin. "Terry Fox"s sister ship, "Kalvik", had been delivered by Victoria shipyard in July of the same year. At the time, Beaudril's two icebreakers were the most powerful privately-owned icebreaking vessels in the world.